Keesing's Record of World Events (formerly Keesing's ...



Keesing's Record of World Events (formerly Keesing's Contemporary Archives),

Volume 19, March, 1973 Libyan, Israel, Israeli, Page 25757

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[+] Mar 1973 - Libyan Airliner shot down by Israel Air Force over Sinai. - Heavy Civilian Casualties. - Arab and Israeli Reactions. - Israeli Raid against Guerrilla Bases in Lebanon. - Israeli-Syrian Air Clashes over Golan Heights.

A Libyan Boeing 727 airliner with 113 passengers on board, and with a French aircrew, was shot down by Israeli fighters on Feb. 21 over the Sinai desert, some 12 miles east of the Suez Canal. The plane, which was on a routine flight from Tripoli (Libya) to Cairo via Benghazi, was apparently off-course and, according to official Israeli statements, the French pilot had ignored repeated calls to land when flying over important military installations. Of the 113 passengers on board, 104 were killed, several were taken to a military hospital at Beersheba. some badly injured, and two or three escaped injury. The victims were predominantly Arabs of several nationalities—mostly Libyans, but including also a number of Egyptians, as well as Jordanians and Lebanese; four French aircrew, a Frenchwoman, two Germans, and a Polish-born Briton also lost their lives. Among those killed were Mr. Saleh Bousseir, formerly Foreign Minister of Libya, and Mme. Saiwa Hegazi, a well-known Egyptian television personality.

The Israeli Cabinet met in emergency session the same day, the Prime Minister (Mrs. Golda Meir) issuing a statement after the meeting expressing “deep sorrow” at the loss of life. An official Israeli statement was issued at the same time.

This statement said that the Libyan airliner had violated air-space over a very sensitive Israel-controlled area and had behaved in a manner that had aroused suspicion and concern regarding its intentions. Repeated warnings had been given to the aircraft to land, conveyed according to international usage, and when there was no response Israeli aircraft were forced to intercept. The statement added: “It has been established beyond all doubt that the pilots of the Libyan plane had noted the repeated warnings according to international aviation usage. The pilot of the plane even acknowledged that he noted the warnings and interception signals, but nevertheless refused to heed the warnings.”

Israeli officials pointed out that Israel was particularly sensitive about air penetrations because the Palestinian guerrillas had often said that they intended to lead a passenger aircraft with explosives and crash it into a populated Israeli centre, such us Tel Aviv.

Reports on the disaster were made to the Israeli Cabinet on the same day by General Moshe Dayna, the Minister of Defence, and by General Mordecai Hod, Commander of the Israel Air Force, while on the following day General Dayan held a press conference in Tel Aviv.

At his press conference General Dayna expressed deep sorrow at the loss of life, but asserted that responsibility for the incident lay with the French pilot of the airliner, who, he said, had ignored all calls to land and had behaved in a manner endangering the safety of his passengers. “The great puzzle[about the disaster],” said the Defence Minister, “is the behaviour and attitude of the captain of the Libyan aircraft…. I cannot really offer any explanation of why the captain behaved this way. I just hope the co-pilot (a Libyan, who was badly injured and in hospital at Beersheba will soon recover and that he will be able to extend some explanation… why they didn't try to land according to the instructions they got.” Stressing the “special nature” of the area flown over, which he described as “the most sensitive one we have got”, General Dayan declared: “The captain is the only one to blame. There is no reason why the Israel Government should be put in a position to feel guilty. The captain should have taken care of the lives of his passengers as his first duty. I have no doubt the captain clearly understood that he had to land, but he did not do so. I cannot speculate on a dead man's intentions, but I fully understand our pilots’ decision after they had taken all precautions….” After saying that he saw no reason to hold any formal investigation into the disaster, General Dayna said that if an Israeli airliner were caught in similar circumstances over hostile territory he would expect it to land and not risk the lives of civilian passengers.

The same evening (Feb. 22) General Hod also held a press conference, at which the two Israeli pilots who shot down the airliner were present; the pilots, who were not identified by name, said that after the airliner had repeatedly ignored signals to land they had tried to damage it and force it to land, but had not intended to make it crash.

General Hod, like General Dayna, said that the incident had occurred over “a prohibited area with lots of sensitive installations”, and that the “stubbornness” of the Boeing pilot in ignoring repeated orders to land had strengthened the suspicion that this was not merely a navigational error. After saying that there had been 16 minutes of futile attempts to convince the airliner's captain to follow instructions to land, General Hod declared: “It was incredible that a responsible airline captain…, knowing that he had over 100 passengers on board, should react as irresponsibly as he did.” General Hod said that the Libyan co-pilot, who had survived, had stated in Beersheba hospital that the aircrew had understood very well what was wanted of them, but it had been decided to ignore the calls and to try and get away “because of the relations between our two countries”.

General Hod stressed that the instructions given to the Israeli pilots were checked at the highest Government level, and that they were to try and force the airliner to land but not to shoot it down deliberately. After the first two warning bursts, he said, the pilot of the airliner was still perfectly able to make a safe landing at Bir Gifgafa, which he had just overflown; following the second burst at the airliner's right wing, when fuel started flowing out and smoke began to emerge, the pilot had tried to land in the sand-dunes but did not succeed.

Intense indignation at the shooting-down of the Libyan airliner with the death of over 100 persons was expressed in all the Arab countries, the Israeli action being also strongly condemned in many non- Arab countries. In Cairo the Egyptian Minister of Information, Dr. Abdel Kader Hatem, denounced the “cowardly, barbaric and inhuman crime” which had occurred over the Sinai desert, declaring that it was “a violation of international law and of all elementary human principles” for which Israel would “bear full responsibility”. Dr. Mahmoud Riad, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, appealed to the United Nations to take measures against those responsible for shooting down the airliner, and in a message to Dr. Waldheim, the U.N. Secretary-General, described the Israeli action as an “outrageous crime” which violated international law. In Paris, M. Schumann, the French Foreign Minister, summoned the Israeli charge d’affaires to the Quai d’Orsay to express, as stated in a subsequent communique, “the unanimous emotions of the French Government and public opinion following the attack on the Libyan aircraft, in the course of which French nationals were killed who were carrying out a peaceful mission of technical co-operation”.

At a press conference in Cairo on Feb. 22 tape-recordings from the pilot of the Libyan airliner were played back by Captain Hassan Selim, director-general of the Egyptian civil aviation organization. These showed that the pilot had reported to Cairo control tower that he had entered Egyptian airspace near Sidi Barrani (on the Libyan border) and was taking the normal course for Cairo. According to the tape, when 25 miles from Cairo the pilot had asked permission to begin his descent and had been given the go-ahead, when a few moments later he reported “serious trouble with the headings and [i.e. direction]compass”, followed shortly after by a report that “four MiGs are at our back”. Here Captain Selim explained that the report of MiG fighters showed that the pilot thought he was still over Egyptian territory whereas in fact he was over Sinai. [The Egyptian Air Force flies Russian MiGs while the Israel Air Force flies U.S. Phantoms and Skyhawks,and French Mirages.] The last call from the pilot's tape said, “We are shot at by the fighters”; after that several calls were made to the airliner from Cairo control tower, but without receiving any reply.

In Israel, it was announced on Feb. 23 that the black box of the Libyan airliner had been found in the wreckage and that it showed that the crew apparently believed that they were over Egypt and that the fighters circling them were MiGs. On Feb. 25 it was announced after a Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem that Israel would make ex gratia compensation payments to the families of those killed in the disaster “in deference to humanitarian considerations”. An official statement issued after the Cabinet meeting expressed Israel's “profound sorrow” over the deaths and said that “the terrible disaster… occurred under circumstances of belligerency and incessant threats of terrorism from the air”.

In a statement on Feb. 26 to the Knesset, General Dayan urged a “hot line” communications link between Israel and the neighbouring Arab countries to prevent any repetition of the Sinai disaster.

After recapitulating the circumstances of the “grievous disaster” General Dayna said: “I know that the only correct solution is peace and normal neighbourly relations. But even in the absence of peace, there is nothing dearer than human life, and we must do everything possible to preserve it.” After expressing the hope that the Arab countries would respond to the appeal for the installation of a “hot line” to prevent any repetition of what had occurred, General Dayna went on to invite all those professionally concerned to come to Israel—including Libyan representatives—to examine the facts of the incident, promising that nothing would be hidden from them. After saying that he personally regretted the loss of Egyptian and Libyan lives in the disaster no less than if they had been Israeli lives, General Dayna reiterated the Israel Government's contention that the disaster had come about “through a chain of misunderstandings” and “a series of errors and omissions” on the part of the Libyan aircraft and the Egyptian control system, as well as “an erroneous Israeli assumption” that the plane had entered the area on a hostile mission and was prepared to take risks rather than obey the order to land.

The bodies of those killed in the shooting down of the Libyan airliner were handed over on Feb. 23 by the Israeli authorities to the Egyptian authorities at Qantara, under the auspices of the International Red Cross, for interment in Libya and Egypt. In Benghazi on Feb. 26 a crowd of 15,000 called for vengeance against Israel at a funeral service for 55 Libyan victims of the disaster which was attended by Colonel Kadhafi, chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council; a Libyan Government statement said: “By all objective standards the shooting down of a civilian aircraft with 113 passengers cannot be allowed to pass unpunished.” In Cairo, a government spokesman described Israel's offer to pay compensation as “a futile attempt to cover a bloody crime” and indicated that it would not be accepted.

At the United Nations, Dr. Waldheim called on Feb. 22 for a “thorough investigation” of the circumstances which led to the shooting down of the airliner, which he described as one of the “most shocking incidents in the history of civil aviation”. A number of Governments, including the British, also urged an impartial inquiry into the incident.

The International Federation of Airline Pilots (IFALPA), meeting on Feb. 26, called for “constructive measures” to prevent any further disaster such as had occurred in Sinai, and endorsed a proposal for an impartial investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in order to recommend ways of avoiding future disasters. IFALPA—which represents some 64,000 pilots throughout the world. including Israel but not Libya—suggested the universal application of a common radio frequency on which military aircraft could communicate, and the development by ICAO of more detailed challenge and recognition procedures. After hearing a report on the incident from the two Israeli pilots concerned, the Federation found no justification for Israeli's “excessive” use of force against a civil airliner whose erratic behaviour, from the evidence, would appear to have indicated an error of navigation rather than a military threat. Although the chairman of the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) said that “firm and positive action” was called for, IFALPA decided against strike action or a boycott of flights to Israel.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) voted on March 1, by 105 votes to one, to condemn the Israeli action which caused the crash of the Libyan airliner, and at the same time called for an “immediate investigation” of the incident, which, it said, “affects and jeopardizes the safety of international civil aviation”.

The Israeli representative, who cast the sole dissenting vote, commented that it was an unusual procedure for a body such as ICAO to condemn first rather than “embarking on a constructive course” of investigation; at the same time he promised that his Government would co-operate fully with the investigation into the “dreadful catastrophe”. The U.S. representative, though voting for the resolution, also did not favour prejudging Israel before the investigation had been undertaken. Libya was absent from the voting and declined to make any statement during the debate.

The last case of this kind occurred in 1955, when two Bulgarian fighters shot down an Israeli airliner flying from London to Led (Lydda) via Paris, Vienna and Istanbul; all 51 passengers and the crew of seven were killed[See 14359 E]. As stated in the article quoted, the Bulgarian Government offered to pay compensation to the families of the 58 victims, to punish “those responsible for the catastrophe”, and to take measures to prevent a repetition of such incidents.

In the early hours of Feb. 21—the same day on which the Sinai disaster occurred—Israeli commandos made their deepest-ever penetration into the Lebanon in an action against Palestinian Arab guerrilla training bases, which was claimed in Tel Aviv to have been completely successful.

Launched just after 1 a.m. and terminating shortly before dawn about 4 a.m., the operation was in the form of a two-pronged attack by Israeli paratroops and naval commandos from missile boats lying off-shore under cover of darkness, the attacking force going ashore in rubber dinghies and in helicopters. The attacks were launched against Palestinian guerrilla training centres in the Nahr el Bared and Badawi refugee camps, about 100 miles north of the Israel border, the camps being about eight miles apart on the main coastal road. An Israeli communiqué said that the guerrilla training centres—seven in all—attacked at the two camps had trained the Japanese gunmen who carried out the Lod Airport massacre and the Black September terrorists responsible for the massacre at the Olympic Games in Munich, as well as gunmen who, it was stated, planned to attack Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union as they were passing through Vienna. The seven bases were claimed to have been destroyed and dozens of guerrillas killed, Israeli casualties being given as six wounded who had been evacuated by helicopter. A senior Israeli military official said that detailed information had been received beforehand about a number of planned Arab attacks which were to have been launched from the destroyed bases, and claimed that at least some of these operations had been forestalled by the commando raids. He also said that Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Iranian and Cypriot guerrillas were being trained at these bases as well as Arabs.

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