Gantz offers condolences as army struggles to understand plane crash

Defense Minister Benny Gantz has been briefed on the small plane crash that took the lives of an air force pilot and cadet earlier in the day, as the IDF struggles to puzzle out what caused the wreck.

“The military will do everything to probe the incident and internalize the necessary conclusions,” Gantz says after speaking to IDF head Aviv Kochavi about the crash and the initial results of a probe. He also offers his condolences to the families of those killed.

The military has yet to announce the results of the investigation and does not know what caused the crash in southern Israel, according to Channel 12 news.

Neri Yarkoni, a reserves fighter pilot, tells Army Radio that “you would need a confluence of several exceptional factors for this crash to occur. The plane was in a healthy place of its lifespan, which will make an investigation more difficult.”