During the 1980s, the government of Honduras had become a close ally of the United States in its undeclared war against the Marxist Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua which had toppled the pro-US government of President Somoza. Resistance to the Ortega government by the so-called “Contras” was covertly organized by the United States with the active support of Honduras. Contra forces were allowed to organize on Honduran soil, and at the height of the operation there were between 12,000 and 17,000 Contra troops in Honduras, a size that rivaled that of the Honduras military itself.
The Fuerza Aerea Hondurena (Honduras Air Force) was equipped with a couple of dozen Israeli-supplied Dassault Super Mystere B.2s plus some very old F-86 Sabres that had been supplied by the USA, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. Beginning in 1982, Honduras had made repeated requests to the USA for the delivery of 12 F-5E/Fs, but these requests had always been refused. However, in 1986 Honduras announced that they were going elsewhere in search of new fighters, and requested two squadrons of J79-powered Kfirs from Israel to meet its needs for modern combat aircraft. The US decided to block the sale of the Kfirs (as was its right, since they were powered by US-built engines), but did concede that Honduras required advanced fighters to counter arms flights into Nicaragua. Consequently, the US government agreed to supply Tiger IIs to Honduras. Ten refurbished F-5Es and two F-5Fs were taken from US stocks and delivered to Honduras between December 1987 and April 1989. They entered service alongside the Honduran air force’s fleet of Super Mystere B.2s as part of the Escuadrilla de Caza, based at BA Coronel Hector Carracciolo Moncada, La Ceiba/Golonson.
Shortly thereafter, the Sandinista regime lost control of Nicaragua when Daniel Ortega failed to win re-election as president in 1990, and relations between the US and Nicaragua were eventually normalized and the Contra effort was called off. In addition, the civil war in El Salvador ended in 1992, and tensions throughout the area were generally reduced. It would seem that Honduras no longer needed modern combat aircraft, and reports during 1995 claimed that the US wanted the Honduran government to give up its F-5s and pass them along to other users or even to return them to the USA. There was even a report that the Honduran F-5Es had been transferred to Chile, after having first been refurbished by Lockheed at Palmdale. These reports are in error, since the Honduran F-5s are still in service at La Ceiba and there are apparently no immediate plans for their disposal.
Sources:
-
F-5: Warplane for the World, Robbie Shaw, Motorbooks, 1990
-
Northrop F-5, Jon Lake and Robert Hewson, World Airpower Journal, Vol
25, 1996.
- Air Power Analysis Update–Honduras, World Air Power Journal, Volume 35, 1998.
