The commander of the Air Force, Maj. Gen. Amikam Nurkin, yesterday (Wednesday) received the findings of a second interim report of the investigation team set up following the disaster of the swallow plane crash in which Major Itai Zeiden and Corporal Lihua Ben-Basa were killed. IDF. The bereaved families were updated on the findings of the report.
Zeiden, an experienced fighter pilot of an airplane F-16, Recently retired from permanent service and served as a flight instructor. Ben-Basa was a pilot flower in the preparatory phase of the pilot course. The two departed on November 24 from a base of yards for a training flight on a Flight School Swallow aircraft. The plane crashed and went up in flames near Rahat. Military and civilian rescue forces, which were rushed to the scene, were forced to determine the deaths of the two.
The findings, which were presented to Nurkin by the team of experts headed by Colonel A., indicate that at this stage it can be determined that the accident was caused by a lack of control over the flight that developed during the practice. The investigative team stressed that at present it cannot indicate what caused the plane to enter an uncontrolled maneuver.
The team of experts continues to investigate the circumstances of the accident. The IDF spokesman said that two main directions are being examined: “Flight operation, which took the aircraft out of the flight envelope; technical malfunction in the engine or rudders during the flight operation, which contributed to the departure of the aircraft from the flight envelope.”
The report also states that “it probably took between 10 and 20 seconds from the last radar contact of the plane until it hit the ground. “From the analysis of the findings at the accident site and the wreckage of the plane, the plane hit the ground, no attempt was made to abandon the plane, the crew was killed as a result of the ground injury, and the plane was largely wiped out.”
During the interrogation, test pilots performed a dedicated test flight on a swallow plane, during which they repeated the flight outline in characteristics that resembled the day of the accident. The aircraft manufacturer also conducted a test flight at the request of the Air Force, and representatives on its behalf came to Israel to assist in the technical tests.
The engine and propeller of the aircraft were sent for comprehensive testing in the United States and underwent a thorough investigation process. Engine investigation and steering system investigation were not completed. No evidence was found of a technical failure in these components, but the IDF noted that “there are components whose condition after the accident cannot be exhausted and their contribution to the accident can be ruled out.”
The team of experts recommended that the commander of the Air Force return the swallow planes to the flights, after extensive and special technical tests that will be performed on all the components that cannot be ruled out whether they contributed to the accident.
Nurkin accepted the report’s findings, and confirmed the directions for further investigation. Following the report’s conclusions and the crew’s recommendation, he decided to gradually return the Swallow array to training and sorting flights, following all the tests and operations set. He instructed the team to complete and exhaust the investigation in full: “Despite the complexity and the great difficulty in investigating the plane, we will continue to investigate professionally and turn every stone so that we can say what happened and how it happened,” he said.