From the Liveblog of
Friday, September 20, 2024
IAF chopper crash probe finds bad visibility conditions led to accident
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
An Israeli Air Force investigation into a helicopter crash in the southern Gaza Strip earlier this month that killed two soldiers and wounded seven others has found that bad visibility conditions led to the accident.
The investigation, led by a colonel in reserves, was presented to IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar and the families of the soldiers today.
In the early morning hours of September 11, a UH-60 Black Hawk from the 123rd Squadron had flown to Rafah with a Unit 669 medical team to evacuate a seriously wounded combat engineer during fighting in the area. During the final landing stage inside an IDF encampment in Rafah, the Black Hawk impacted the ground instead of touching down correctly. The crash killed Sgt. Maj. (res.) Daniel Alloush, 37, and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Tom Ish-Shalom, 38, who both served in the IAF’s elite search and rescue Unit 669, and injured seven other troops from Unit 669 and the 123rd Squadron.
The investigation found that the helicopter attempted to land at a “complex” helipad in a combat zone to evacuate the wounded soldier, while there were “challenging visibility conditions” due to the landing taking place at night and heavy dust kicked up by the chopper.
“These conditions most likely led the helicopter crew to wrong spatial orientation in the final process of landing, resulting in the helicopter hitting the ground,” the military says. The investigation found that “the challenging conditions of a dark night combined with dust, led to a loss of eye contact with the ground, which resulted in a high probability of incorrect spatial orientation.”
According to the probe, the incident was not caused by enemy fire. It also found that there were no technical failures, and members of the crew were all fit for the task.
The wounded soldiers were rescued from the crashed chopper by ground forces, led by the commander of the Givati Brigade, and were extracted from Gaza and taken to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba by another helicopter. “The ground forces prevented more severe results in the incident,” the IDF says.
IAF chief Bar says that “the Air Force will draw lessons [from the incident] quickly, and will continue to act with determination.”
