Three years later, Carney, now a lieutenant colonel, was again picked for a high-risk, clandestine, special operation mission two days in advance of the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada. Carey was the ranking officer of a team of Air Force Combat Controllers and Navy SEALs tasked with conducting a reconnaissance of a new airport under construction at Point Salines on the southwestern tip of the Eastern Caribbean island. Their shared mission was to determine how the facility was defended and whether the unfinished runway would support the weight of America military transport planes. They also would set up navigation beacons that would guide the transports to the target. In the event, on Oct. 23, 1983, a nighttime parachute rendezvous of the SEALs with the four controllers waiting aboard the USS Clifton Sprague off the Grenada coast went awry in bad weather. Faulty planning, inadequate equipment and training and bad luck also contributed to the drowning death of four of the arriving SEALs. The surviving 20-member joint team made two attempts to reach the island by small boat from the Navy frigate over successive nights, but both attempts were thwarted by more bad weather, bad luck and equipment problems. The pre-invasion reconnaissance was eventually conducted by an Air Force AC-130 from the air instead.