Dr. Amnon Tzservinsky, a scientist at the Technion’s Aeronautics Department, was killed Thursday in an explosion that wrecked the rocket propulsion laboratory at the Haifa institute. He was 34. His assistant, Tzvi Avni, suffered from severe shock having apparently been thrown against a wall by the blast, and was hospitalized.
Dr. Tzservinsky, who for years had devoted his researches to rocket propulsion problems, had gone to the subterranean lab with Avni for a series of tests. The subsequent explosion was heard across the Technion campus, and the aeronautics building trembled. Workers hurrying to the scene found the lab and the control room wrecked and Dr. Tzservinsky dead.
Police and Labor Ministry officials began an investigation. Two theories emerged: that a bottle containing an inflammable material fell, or that there was a gas leakage. Dr. Tzservinsky was a central figure in the Technion’s long research on rocket-launching. The Haifa-born engineer received his doctorate in 1963. A senior lecturer in the Aeronautics Department, he was known to Israelis through his frequent appearances on radio and television, when he explained the space operations of the USSR and the US.
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