The Capture of Torrijos Airport took place as an opening action of the

United States invasion of Panama The United States invasion of Panama, codenamed Operation Just Cause, lasted over a month between mid-December 1989 and late January 1990. It occurred during the administration of President George H. W. Bush and ten years after the Torrijos– ...

, and was fought between the

U.S. military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

and the Panama Defense Forces (PDF) on 20 December 1989. The goal of this operation was to capture the

Panamanian Air Force The Panamanian Public Forces ( es, Fuerza Pública de la República de Panamá) are the national security forces of Panama. Panama is the second country in Latin America (the other being Costa Rica) to permanently abolish standing armies, with P ...

, headquartered at the airport, and to close the airport to traffic coming into Panama. The capture of Torrijos Airport was executed by the

U.S. Army Rangers United States Army Rangers, according to the US Army's definition, are personnel, past or present, in any unit that has the official designation "Ranger". The term is commonly used to include graduates of the US Army Ranger School, even if t ...

of the

75th Ranger Regiment The 75th Ranger Regiment, also known as Army Rangers, is the U.S. Army's premier light infantry unit and special operations force within the United States Army Special Operations Command. The regiment is headquartered at Fort Benning, Georgi ...

Background

The US had developed a three-stage plan to capture Torrijos Airport to the mission: to isolate Objective Bear (the main terminal), to eliminate enemy resistance, and to prevent the Panama Defense Forces (PDF) from interfering with

Operation Just Cause Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

. The Company C could rely on fire support consisted of an AC-130 "Spectre" gunship and AH-6 attack helicopters. The American plan called for the AC-130 was to clear three .50-caliber machine gun positions and a

ZPU-4 The ZPU (, meaning "anti-aircraft machine gun mount") is a family of towed anti-aircraft gun based on the Soviet 14.5×114mm KPV heavy machine gun. It entered service with the Soviet Union in 1949 and is used by over 50 countries worldwide. Qua ...

anti-aircraft position at the airport, while the AH-6s neutralised the PDF guard tower. Initially, U.S. intelligence indicated that there were very few people in the main terminal at H-Hour. However, two international flights had just landed at the airport, which was still fully operational. As a result of this, there were actually 398 civilians in the airport rather than the few dozen that the Americans had expected to find. In addition, to this intelligence failure the PDF's 2nd Company was on alert and was patrolling in and around the airport terminal buildings.

The operation

The Rangers began their operations after another group had launched preliminary airstrikes against the Panamanian Defense Forces defending the airfield. After this they airdropped towards the airfield from a height of 500 feet, which was 300 feet less than their training drops in the US. Unfortunately, some Rangers forgot to release their rucksacks and ended up injuring their ankles upon landing. Despite this setback, they managed to secure the airfield with relatively little resistance, though there was some gunfire in the main terminal building. While the mission was successful, some accounts of the event suggest that one Ranger lost their life during the battle.

Aftermath

On the morning of 20 December 1989, at approximately 7am, the Ranger company was able to linked up with units from the

82nd Airborne Division The 82nd Airborne Division is an Airborne forces, airborne infantry division (military), division of the United States Army specializing in Paratrooper, parachute assault operations into denied areasSof, Eric"82nd Airborne Division" ''Spec Ops ...

. The prisoners, detainees, and confiscated documents and weapons were turned over to the military police company commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. During the course of the operation to capture the airport, only 1 ranger was killed and 5 were wounded. Whereas 5 PDF soldiers were killed and 21 were captured.

References

{{Reflist 20th-century military history of the United States Military history of Panama Torrijos Airport Torrijos Airport United States Army Rangers Airborne operations December 1989 events in North America United States invasion of Panama