Survivors of the downed Libyan airliner and eyewitnesses on the ground described today what happened moments before the Boeing 727 jet was shot down by Israeli fighter planes over the Sinai peninsula yesterday.
The survivors were visited at Beersheba Hospital today by Gen. Israel Tal, chief of the operations branch of Israel’s General Headquarters and by French Ambassador Francois Hure who came to see one of the surviving French crew members of the Libyan plane. The crew member, a steward who was suffering from shock but otherwise not seriously injured, was also interviewed by reporters.
He said he noticed the Israeli planes approach and then pull away. He said there were two shots and then the crash. The steward said he was in the passenger cabin at the time and was not aware of whether or not the pilot had responded to signals from the Israeli fighters. He said the flight had been perfectly normal up to that time. An Egyptian passenger who survived reported seeing Israeli interceptors but remembered nothing of the crash. Another surviving passenger, believed to be Saleh Bousier, a former Minister of Information of Libya, refused to identify himself or to reply to questions.
Hure told reporters he came to the hospital to see the injured French national and not to conduct an inquiry. He said he had no immediate instructions to make representations to the Israeli Foreign Ministry but expected to receive such instructions later. French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann made representations this morning to the Israeli Embassy in Paris.
ISRAELI SOLDIERS’ VERSION
Israeli soldiers in the Sinai said today that they saw the Libyan plane approach from the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal near the town of Suez. They said the plane seemed to be flying in the general direction of Beersheba when Israeli fighters went up to intercept it.
The Israeli interceptors reportedly made the standard international signals for the Libyan aircraft to follow them–dipping their wings and lowering their wheels. The pilot of the Libyan plane gave signs that he was yielding to the instructions by lowering his flaps, the witnesses said. But suddenly he nosed his plane upward and tried to escape toward Egypt.
Israeli sources said the pilot’s suspicious moves and the fact that the plane came from Egyptian territory raised the fear that it might have been seized by hijackers who were planning a suicide attack on Israeli territory in retaliation for Tuesday night’s Israeli commando raids on terrorist bases in Lebanon.
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