The situation in Somalia had been deteriorating for some time and the US Ambassador had recently assisted the USMC in upgrading a contingency evacuation plan - he had had previous experience from Liberia. This plan was more or less executed from 2 Jan.

The HMH-461 CH-53E cross-decked from USS Trenton to USS Guam before final launch and conducted two night time air-to-air refuelings with KC-130s, to reach the embassy compound. The KC-130s flights were operated from VMGR-252 and VMGR-352 in Bahrain. The main evacuation force consisted of 10 Night Vision equipped CH-46 Sea Knight from the USS Guam. These conducted night landings at the embassy in 4 waves, to evacuate over 280 people from 30 nations and finally to collect the protection team.