Israel received the first delivery of warplanes from the United States since the lifting of the embargo last week by President Reagan, a military spokesman said today.
The three F-15 jet fighters, two of which were part of the embargoed planes and one which was originally scheduled to arrive today, arrived after a 10-hour direct flight from Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire. The planes refueled several times in mid-air.
The Reagan Administration held up delivery of the 14 F-16s and two F-15s following the Israeli raids on Iraq’s nuclear facility in June and terrorist headquarters in Beirut in July.
However, there was still no date for when the F-16s would arrive in Israel, the spokesman said. The Administration grounded all F-16s in the U.S. following the crash of one of the planes in Utah earlier this month in which a pilot was killed. There is reportedly a problem with the planes’ flight control computers.
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