Israeli F-16 jet crashes in northern Palestine

5/4/2005

An Israeli air force F-16 fighter jet crashed at an airbase in northern Palestine, an Israeli military spokesman said on Wednesday.

An Israel Air Force pilot and air navigator assist ejected from their F-16 fighter jet after the $50 million Model D plane ran into technical difficulties coming in to land at the Ramat David air force base in northern Palestine.

The crew parachuted to the ground safely, but the plane crashed onto the runway and was completely destroyed.

After hitting the ground, both crew members were taken by helicopter to Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer for tests.

The pilot and navigator, both captains in the air force were on routine training flight for almost an hour yesterday, when they came across a severe technical problem with the plane's landing gear which caused the plane crash, an Israeli spokesman said.

Colonal Avi Ya'akovi, commander of the base where the plane crashed, said that even as the plane was close to landing, everything seemed okay.

The plane hit the runway and began to straighten up, an when the pilot tried to bring down the front wheel to keep the plane on the runway, he discovered that the right wing was starting to dip.

"The pilot tried forcibly to keep the plane on the runway and stabilize it, but he felt the plane was dragging toward the right," said Ya'akovi. After attempting to halt the plane altogether, the pilot decided to eject, a move Ya'akovi praised as "brave, and correct, decision."

"In a case like this, the pilot has two options. One is staying in the plane, which contradicts unequivocal directives that determine one must abandon a plane when it is straying from the runway at such a high speed, and the second option is to abandon," said Ya'akovi.

"The problem with abandoning like this is that it's done while the plane is tilting to the side. And this poses a great danger to the crew, since the ejection seat is ideally meant to come out when the plane is balanced. When the plane is tilting to the side, the seat doesn't have enough height and the parachute doesn't have enough time to open."

"This situation is so dangerous that even the manufacturer of the plane [Lockheed Martin] makes no promise that the crew will be saved if it abandons [the plane]," he said, adding that if the pilot had waited one more second , "there's a good chance both of them would have been killed."

The Israeli air-force commander Elizer Shakedi grounded all F-16 planes, pending the probe into the causes of the crash.

The crash of the Israeli jet on Tuesday coincides with the crash of two American F-18s Hornet fighter-bombers in Iraq.

The F-16I Sufa is a modified variant of the F-16D Block 50 and 52 fighter and ground attack aircraft, with weapons systems capability modified to meet the requirements of the Israeli Air Force.

In September 2001, Israel purchased red 50 F-16I aircraft and signed the agreement for an optional additional 52 aircraft.

The Israeli Air Force has about 362 ‘F-16s planes’, giving the IAF the largest fleet of F-16 fighters apart from the U.S., according to foreign reports.