Pilot killed, second man seriously hurt in light plane crash in north

A man was killed and a second seriously injured Monday after a small plane they were flying crashed in northern Israel.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said one man was pulled from the wreckage with no signs of life and pronounced dead by paramedics. He was later named as Tal Ben Yosef, 54, an amateur pilot from the central Israel village of Beit Hashmonai, who in the past was the editor of a flight magazine.

Ben Yosef’s local council mourned him as “a role model family man and a beloved man in the community,” adding: “He will be sorely missed. We are shocked and heartbroken and we share the family’s grief.”

The second man, in his 30s, was taken to Ziv hospital in Safed in serious and unstable condition with multisystem injuries. The hospital later said he was stabilized but still in serious condition after medical staff resuscitated him, and that he was sedated and intubated while awaiting further treatment.

The second man was not immediately identified.

The plane went down by the town of Tuba-Zangariyye, near the Mahanaim airfield. Due to the “complex terrain,” firefighters, police and soldiers from the military’s elite 669 rescue unit assisted in the recovery operation, according to the Israel Fire and Rescue Services.

טל בן יוסף הוא ההרוג בהתרסקות המטוס הקל בגליל העליון@_Gitsis_ pic.twitter.com/sAzPFCwCTa

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There was no official word on what caused the plane to crash, but Hebrew media reports said the plane experienced engine trouble shortly before crashing. The aircraft appeared to be headed back to Mahanaim but lost altitude and crashed, according to the Ynet news site.

The Israel Police, which is probing the incident, said it was informed by the Israel Airports Authority that a pilot reported a crash landing, but then lost contact with him.

In March, two people were killed when the light plane they were in crashed on a highway in the south.