
Thomas Randolph Howes is an American
Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tec ...
employee who was captured by the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian confl ...
(FARC) and was held hostage from February 13, 2003 to July 2, 2008. He was rescued in
Operation Jaque, along with the two other American contractors,
Ingrid Betancourt, and eleven
Colombian security personnel.
On March 12, 2009, Howes,
Keith Stansell and
Marc Gonsalves were each awarded the
Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom
The Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom is a decoration established to acknowledge civilian employees of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) who are killed or wounded in the line of duty.
Description
The medal was cr ...
.
Mission in Colombia
Thomas Howes was part of a team of a dozen or so pilots and technicians overseen by the
U.S. Southern Command
The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), located in Doral, Florida in Greater Miami, is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for providing contingency planning, op ...
. Their operation was dubbed
Southcom Reconnaissance System, and Northrop Grumman held the $8.6 million contract for the work.
As the program became increasingly successful, several former pilots and others familiar with the program said civilian managers pushed flight crews farther over the jungles, often at night and sometimes 300 miles from their base.
Their mission expanded, too, from locating targets in the illegal drug trade chosen by the American Embassy to keeping a look out for leftist guerrillas, including those of FARC.
By 2002, pilots began to worry about what they perceived to be the lack of power and speed of their planes - the single-engine
Cessna Caravan
The Cessna 208 Caravan is a utility aircraft produced by Cessna.
The project was commenced on November 20, 1981, and the prototype first flew on December 9, 1982.
The production model was certified by the FAA in October 1984 and its Cargoma ...
- for a country as big and mountainous as Colombia.
Two pilots, Paul C. Hooper and Douglas C. Cockes, wrote letters in November and December 2002 to Northrop Grumman warning that flying single-engine planes was a recipe for disaster. The letters suggested that the Cessnas be replaced with twin-engine
Beechcraft King Air 300s.
The planes were not replaced, and the two pilots resigned. After the two crashes, which temporarily halted the program, Northrop Grumman resumed the operation under a different name, the
Colombia Surveillance System, using twin-engine planes.
After the first crash, the program was transferred to a newly created company,
CIAO Inc.
Abduction
Thomas Howes,
Marc Gonsalves, and
Keith Stansell were on a drug surveillance mission in Colombia's cocaine-producing southern jungle when their single engine Cessna plane crashed on February 13, 2003 on the territory controlled by FARC.
The American pilot, Tom Janis, and a Colombian military intelligence officer were led out by FARC gunmen and shot. The three surviving Americans, (Gonslaves, Stansell and Howes) were forced to march with the guerrillas, deeper and deeper into the jungle. After this, the three Americans' exact location was lost by US intelligence. Three different Americans associated with Northrop Grumman made an attempt to find the hostages by air but were all killed when their plane hit a tree.
Then Colombian journalist Jorge Botero was allowed to contact them and record a tape to prove that they were alive and well – and ready to be traded for imprisoned members of the FARC being held by the Colombian government.
Publications
* ''
Out of Captivity'' is a book authored by
Marc Gonsalves,
Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howes with the assistance of author
Gary Brozek about their time spent as hostages of
FARC
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conf ...
guerrillas.
See also
*
List of political hostages held by FARC
References
External links
*http://www.marc-gonsalves.com/
The Forgotten Hostageson CBS 60 Minutes II
Held Hostage in Colombiadocumentary film
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howes, Thomas
1953 births
American people taken hostage
Recipients of the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom
Living people
Northrop Grumman