Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Television guidance" in English language version.
In the attack aimed at stemming the oil release, four F-111 jet fighters were reported to have let loose GBU-15 "smart bombs" to destroy a critical maze of controls for pumping oil between storage installations on the southern Kuwaiti coast to the offshore Sea Island Terminal, where the oil was pouring into the gulf.
Four aircraft operated as buddy pairs, each with one jet as the GBU-15 launcher and the second flying more than 50 miles off-shore to guide the weapon through data link. Capts Rick `Spanky' Walker and Ken Theurer, in F-111F 72-1446 (`Charger 34′), made the first supersonic drop eight miles from the target at 15,000 ft and then turned away to avoid heavy AAA, while the guiding F-111F, 65 miles away, linked to the infra-red sensing bomb. Contact with the weapon was lost soon afterwards so a second GBU-15 was launched, also at supersonic speed, by Maj Sammy Samson and Capt Steve Williams from F-111F 70-1452 (`Charger 35′). Its signal was picked up by WSO Capt Brad Seipel and pilot Capt Mike Russell from 50 miles distance in 'Charger 32' (70-2414). Seipel, who had flown in the lead F-111F attacking Saddam's Tikrit palace on Night One of the war, guided the bomb to a direct hit on one of the manifold structures and then picked up and directed a second bomb from Samson's aircraft for a hit on the other manifold building three miles away. It took a day for the oil in the pipelines to burn out, but the spillage was almost stopped. A second data-link aircraft (70-2408 'Charger 31′) was flown by Capt Ben Snyder and Maj Jim Gentleman and a fifth jet, 70-2404 `Charger 33', crewed by Capts John Taylor and Seth Bretscher, had to abort the mission with technical problems.
