Viper Driver Flying Hours

Capt T.O. Hanford made national headlines in 1995 after an Operation DENY FLIGHT mission when he elected to remain on station for an additional 45 minutes in hopes of locating Capt Scott O'Grady who had been shot down 6 days earlier by a Bosnian Serb SAM. O'Grady eventually heard Capt Hanford's radio calls and answered, setting off the largest rescue mission since Operation DESERT STORM.

In the first 2 1/2 weeks of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, Major T.O. Hanford was cited 4 times for individual acts of heroism to include being credited with saving a 15 man SOF team pinned down in the mountains near the Iranian border. Received his 2nd DFC for Valor.

T.O. Hanford's picture has been on the cover of almost every major newspaper in the U.S. to include the New York Time, L.A. Times and the Washington Post. He has been on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and has had indepth interviews on Dateline and Good Morning America. He was a 1996 Aviation Week and Space Technology Laureate and his name is permanently inscribed in their Aviation Hall of Fame at the Smithsonian Institute's Air and Space Museam in Washington D.C.