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	been operational a couple of days. We had had control of
	the tower for 3 or 4 days.
	
	We thought we had provisions established through the TACC
	[Tactical Air Control Center] at Riyadh for insuring that
	aircraft diverting in here would call A-10 FOL ops for
	weather updates. That proved not to be the case. When the
	pilot, who was approximately 1/2 mile in trail of the tanker
	and arrived at bingo field for the tanker or bingo field to
	recovery at KKMC with a 12-hour-old weather forecast,
	decided he would come in here--thinking he had VFR [visual
	flight rules] weather; he did not--ended up with no options
	due to low fuel and ultimately punched out. About 18 hours
	later a Saudi Tornado also ran out of fuel trying to land at
	KKMC and punched out approximately 5 miles to the south of
	the field.


	The things that we might have been able to do better to
	prevent those things were rapidly put in place. At CENTCOM
	initiative, we brought in five major or lieutenant colonel
	type aviators to act as airfield supervisors of flying, much
	like you have in effect at Nellis [AFB NV] during a major
	Red Flag. They have provided a 24-hour SOF [Safety of
	Flight] capability here on the airfield that has been very,
	very useful. The coordination process  between RAPCON,
	tower, myself, the SOF, FOL ops, and everyone rapidly
	matured from that point.

	Subsequently, we had, within a matter of days, four F-15s
	come into emergency field in equally bad weather and recover
	safely; A-10's emergency field, F-16's emergency field, etc,
	etc. So we learned quickly from that early experience and
	proved our ability to deal with the problem, but I think the
	area where the greatest challenges came for me and that


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