Operation Coronet Nighthawk (1990–2001) was one of many operations that took place in the early 1990s to stop the drugs coming into the United States from Central and South America. The idea of the operation was to have a rotational deployment operation to intercept possible drug trafficking aircraft and to control territories where drug traffickers would not be able to smuggle more. The operation was based out of Howard Air Force Base in Panama and was moved all over the Caribbean and Central America. The Commander-in-Chief and US Atlantic Command oversaw this operation and, under the guidance of Joint Interagency Task Force East (JITF-E) division, stood alert 24/7 in case the need to identify an unknown aircraft came up. Operation Coronet Nighthawk is credited with over 33,000 metric tons of cocaine being disrupted or seized since 1994. This operation is no longer in use anymore since 2001, but the title was used again in a different operation that took place in Europe soon after it fell apart and incorporated the new stealth jets known as the Nighthawks thus why the name Nighthawk was used again.[1]
