The SEALs of Platoons Golf, Bravo, and Delta launched from the water under the command of Lieutenant Commander Patrick Toohey, the executive officer of SEAL Team 4. The main force landed just south of the airport at approximately 0030 on December 20, shortly before initial combat operations erupted across Panama City. Several reconnaissance teams had been pre-positioned on the north side of the airfield to provide real-time intelligence on enemy movements. Toohey established a command post near the southern edge of the runway. Then the plan changed. Commander McGrath, a SEAL officer coordinating multiple operations from a patrol boat offshore, relayed new guidance: the aircraft was to be disabled with "minimal damage" -- defined as shot-out tires and cut control wires -- rather than destroyed outright. The distinction would prove costly.

Golf Platoon advanced toward the hangars where Noriega's jet was parked. Members of the Panama Defense Forces opened fire, and the engagement turned lethal in seconds. The coastal airport offered little cover, and the SEALs found themselves in a firefight on open tarmac against defenders who had the advantage of the hangar structures. Two SEALs were killed in the initial exchange. Bravo and Delta Platoons moved forward to reinforce Golf, and within several minutes the teams had secured the hangars -- but at a terrible price. Two more SEALs were dead and four more wounded. With the hangars under American control, the SEALs finally disabled Noriega's Learjet by firing an M136 AT4 anti-tank weapon into it, the same plane they had been told to handle gently only minutes before. A MEDEVAC helicopter transported the wounded to the Joint Casualty Collection Point at Howard Air Force Base.

After the initial assault, the surviving SEALs held Paitilla Airport through the rest of the night. To prevent any Panama Defense Forces transport planes from using the runway, they rolled other aircraft onto it, creating an improvised blockade. The tactic was crude but effective. No PDF planes departed. The next day, a company from the 75th Ranger Regiment arrived to relieve the battered SEAL team, which had accomplished its mission at a cost that would haunt the special operations community for years.

Four Navy SEALs died at Paitilla Airport. Lieutenant Junior Grade John Patrick Connors, 25, from Arlington, Massachusetts. Chief Engineman Donald Lewis McFaul, 32, from San Diego. Boatswain's Mate First Class Christopher Taylor Tilghman, 30, from Kailua, Hawaii. Torpedoman's Mate Second Class Isaac George Rodriguez III, 24, from Missouri City, Texas. The battle's aftermath generated intense scrutiny within the military. Critics questioned why a team of forty-eight SEALs had been sent to disable a single aircraft on an exposed airfield when standoff weapons could have accomplished the same objective without risking lives. The mid-mission change from "destroy" to "disable with minimal damage" forced operators into close-range engagement on open ground -- exactly the scenario special operations doctrine is designed to avoid. Paitilla became a case study in how command decisions and shifting orders can transform a straightforward mission into a catastrophe.