- Title: LEBANON: ISRAELI FORCES HAVE SHOT DOWN LEBANESE PLANE
- Date: 26th May 2001
- Summary: (U5) BEIRUT, LEBANON (MAY 24, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. SLV PAN CESSNA 152 AND OTHER AIRCRAFT AT BEIRUT AIRPORT VIP TERMINAL WHERE THE DOWNED PLANE TOOK OFF 0.17 2. SCU JR EXECUTIVE COMPANY SIGN; SLV/MV AIRCRAFT 0.28 3. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) MINISTER OF INTERIOR ELIAS ALMURR SPEAKING AT NEWS CONFERENCE AT THE AIRPORT SAYING "That wasn't a military
- Embargoed: 10th June 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BEIRUT, SOUTH LEBANON
- Country: Lebanon
- Reuters ID: LVA7HYOMYBRGQ5WC94K382T4H09W
- Story Text: Israeli forces have shot down a Lebanese plane they
feared was on a suicide mission.
Israel said the light civilian plane penetrated its
airspace without authorisation and officials believed it could
have been carrying out a guerrilla attack against an Israeli
city on the first anniversary of an Israeli military pullout
from Lebanon.
Lebanon has said the plane was piloted by a student who
was a Cypriot national.
The Lebanese army said on Thursday (May 24) the plane,
flown by a student pilot who took off without his school's
permission, was intercepted by Israeli warplanes over southern
Lebanon and forced across the border before being shot down.
In northern Israel, the air force sent warplanes and
helicopters in pursuit of the aircraft it said had crossed
from Lebanon while Israeli forces were on heightened alert
against threatened attacks by Lebanese guerrillas.
When efforts to radio the Cessna aircraft failed and
warning shots went unheeded, Israeli pilots shot it down in
the area of Mikhmoret beach, north of Tel Aviv, army officials
said.
Witnesses told Israeli television that the plane's
wreckage rained down on a building at a navy training school.
The dead pilot, a 43-year-old Lebanese man, plunged through
the roof of the instructors' lounge.
An army spokesman said Israel feared the plane might have
been trying to carry out a threatened Islamic guerrilla attack
on the first anniversary of its withdrawal from southern
Lebanon that ended 22 years of occupation.
The Israeli air force tracked the plane from its takeoff
in Beirut and tried for 20 minutes to contact the pilot and
verify his intentions, he said.
The Lebanese army issued a statement that identified the
pilot as Stephan Ohannis Nicolian, a student at a flying
school in Beirut, and gave a different version of the
incident.
"He circled in the direction of south Lebanon, where he
was intercepted by four Israeli jet fighters which forced him
south," it said in a statement. "He entered the airspace of
occupied Palestine and contact with him was lost."
A Lebanese army spokesman said the plane was intercepted
over Lebanese territory, but the Israeli army denied that.
Lebanese security officials said the plane, belonging to a
Lebanese company, was flown by a Cypriot national.
Lebanese Minister of the Interior, Elias Almurr said the
pilot was acting alone.
"That wasn't a military operation and we don't want to
give the Israelis a reason to react. It could be fabricated by
the Israelis to their advantage."
Almurr said ground staff had tried to prevent the man from
leaving, before losing track of the flight as it disappeared
from the radar.
In south Lebanon hundreds of Hizbollah followers marched
near an Israeli post on the borders with Israel.
Men and women demonstrated near the Israeli post at Fatma
gate, a former Israeli crossing, waving yellow Hizbollah and
Lebanese flags.
Hizbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite Moslem movement, led
resistance to Israeli forces that compelled Israel to leave
the south on May 24 last year after 22 years of military
occupation.
Lebanon plans public celebrations to mark the south's
liberation on Friday, which the government has said will be a
public holiday.
Hizbollah has voiced solidarity with a Palestinian
uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip.
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