Sources here said Sunday that Israel has no definite information that one of two airmen who bailed out when their Israel Air Force Phantom jet was shot down over south Lebanon Thursday is in the hands of Amal, the Shiite Moslem militia.
Amal claimed Friday to be holding the flyer. They said he sustained a broken arm but was otherwise unharmed. The sources here said Lebanese media reports were studied over the weekend but offered no confirmation of Amal’s claim. Amal failed to produce the pilot for foreign reporters.
The pilot was literally scooped off the ground in a daring helicopter rescue Thursday, 90 minutes after he parachuted safely in an area east of the port city of Sidon controlled by terrorist groups. Outgoing Premier Shimon Peres said at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting that the rescue was the most brilliant and courageous act possible in the circumstances. He said it proved the resourcefulness of the Israel Defense Force and the Air Force.
The American-built jet fighter was the first Israel Air Force plane shot down over Lebanon since 1983. It was taking part in a bombing raid on an El Fatah base near the Lebanese coast south of Tyre. It is believed to have been hit by a Soviet-made SA-7 rocket.
A DARING RESCUE
Details of the pilot rescue were released Friday after nearly 10 hours of official silence. According to the account, the pilot managed for 90 minutes to evade terrorists in the area. He was detected by a radio transmitter device activated when he bailed out of his plane.
A search helicopter braving gunfire at treetop level, swooped to the ground long enough to allow the pilot to grab the skids and whisked him to safety. The pilot, not immediately identified, was released from Rambam hospital in Haifa Friday after a physical checkup.
The search for the second downed flyer proved fruitless. Although Israel remains skeptical of Amal’s claim that he is their captive, the government’s coordinator for policy in Lebanon, Uri Lubrani, warned the Shiite militia Sunday that it would be held responsible for the safety and welfare of the missing man.
Amal leader Nabih Berri spoke over the weekend of a possible major prisoner exchange. But observers here doubt that Israel would agree to anything on the scale of the 1985 swap in which 1,150 convicted Lebanese and Palestinian terrorists were released in exchange for three Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon by Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
