Tony Blair's Jet Comes Within Minutes of Being Shot Down by Israeli Fighter Planes
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tony Blair's Jet Comes Within Minutes of Being Shot Down by Israeli
Fighter Planes*
Friday, May 23, 2008
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came within moments of being
killed when two Israeli fighter aircraft threatened to shoot down a
private jet taking him to a Middle East conference in the belief that it
might have been staging a terrorist attack.
The warplanes were scrambled to intercept after the jet pilot failed to
contact air traffic control. Blair, the international community’s envoy
to the Middle East, was flying from the World Economic Forum (WEF)
summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to attend a major
conference on private investment in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
The Israeli aircraft used to intercept Blair’s plane would have been
versions of the F16 or F15, armed with Shafrir and Python air-to-air
missiles. Both missiles have proved to be devastatingly effective and
versatile. The Shafrir 2 missile shot down nearly 100 aircraft in the
1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Air traffic controllers spotted a suspicious aircraft heading into
Israeli airspace from the Sinai peninsula on Monday and made several
attempts to establish contact. When the pilot failed to respond to their
urgent requests, the Israelis scrambled two fighters to intercept what
they feared could have been a terrorist attacker.
The fighters flew above Blair’s civilian aircraft to indicate to the
pilot that he was considered a suspect target, at which point he finally
made contact. The pilot told them that he was carrying Blair.
During the entire incident, Blair — flying with other delegates from the
WEF, who were also attending the Bethlehem conference — was not informed
of the situation by the pilot.
“They were unaware of it while they were on the plane,” Ruti
Winterstein, spokeswoman for Blair’s office in Israel, said. “They
didn’t hear about it until afterwards, from the media.”
Initial investigations into the events indicated a technical malfunction
was to blame for the breakdown in communication, the Israeli newspaper
Maariv said.