An IAF flight instructor and his trainee cadet were killed on Wednesday afternoon when their aircraft crashed 30 minutes after taking off from the Tzeelim Air Force base in southern Israel on a routine exercise.
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Captain Matan Assa and Private Carmi Elan had been in the air for half an hour when their double-engine Fouga CM.170 Magister – known in the IDF as a 'Zukit' - hurtled to the ground. The crash occurred in an open area between the base and Kibbutz Revivim.
Emergency response teams, including Magen David Adom paramedics and firefighters, rushed to the scene of the crash, but to no avail.
The families of Assa, 24, from Yavne, and Elan, 19, of Herzliya, have been notified.
Scene of the crash (Photo: Herzl Yosef)
IAF chief, Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, has appointed an officer holding the rank of Colonel to head the investigative committee.
The Zukit, which is based on the French Magister, has been used by the IAF since the 1980s. It can reach 425 mph and weighs between 2.5-3 tons. It does not have an ejection seat.
IAF Chief of Staff, Brigadier-General Yohanan Locker, said the crash took place shortly before the exercise was scheduled to end.
"The flight involved two 'Zukit' airplanes," Locker told reporters. "Some 30 minutes after taking off, the aircraft at the forefront turned and noticed that the plane following him had crashed into the ground. Prior to the crash there was no communication from the second plane indicating there was a problem."
Brig. Gen. Locker said the planes were flying at a low altitude as part of the cadet's combat training. He noted that Pvt. Ilan had been in the notoriously selective course for 18 months, and had accumulated considerable flight experience. Locker also said the instructor, an F-16 pilot by training, was very
experienced.
This is the second plane to go down during a routine flight drill in the past few weeks: In early September, a Cobra helicopter crashed in mid-flight off the Jezreel Valley, killing both pilot and co-pilot.
The Cobra took off from the Ramat David Air Base. According to the IAF sources investigating the incident, the pilot radioed in a distress call about 10 minutes after taking off, saying the helicopter's tail had broken off in mid air. The pilot attempted to perform an emergency landing to no avail.
Hanan Greenberg, Ilana Curiel, Ra'anan Ben-Zur and Eli Seynor contributed to this report
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