Three French aviation officials visited the site of the Libyan airliner disaster in the Sinai desert this morning. The three-men–a chief captain, a flight control officer and a representative of the French Aviation Authority–constitute an investigating team that arrived here last night.
Israeli officials have promised them whatever assistance they may need in their investigation. The three men were met at Lod Airport by representatives of the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority, French Embassy officials and representatives of Air France, the French national airline which provided the downed Libyan airliner with its pilot and several French crew members.
The French investigators refused to talk to newsmen. They are expected to ask Israeli authorities for the radar track charts and other records of the Israeli fighter pilots up to the moment they shot down the Libyan plane. They are believed to have asked for a meeting with Gen. Mordechai Hod, Israel’s Air Force Commander, and other Israel’s military authorities.
Another body, that of a child, has been found in the wreckage of the plane, it was announced here last night. Seven survivors remain in Israeli hospitals. One of them, a French steward, took a turn for the worse yesterday and was put on the critical list at Beersheba Hospital.
The Libyan co-pilot, El Kidifi El Mahadi, was still in an oxygen tent at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem where he was reported to be slightly improved. His wife, a Greek national, has been given an adjacent room at the hospital so that she can be near her husband. Tuesday night she and a friend, the wife of a Greek Air Force officer, were dinner guests of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.
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