On 21 February 1973, the Boeing 727–200 left Tripoli and flew to Benghazi, for its scheduled stopover. After taking off from Benghazi, it became lost because of a combination of bad weather and equipment failure over Northern Egypt. The aircraft entered Israeli controlled airspace over the Sinai Peninsula, where it was intercepted by two Israeli F-4 Phantom IIs,[1] it was shot down by the Israeli fighter pilots with the authorisation of David Elazar, the Israeli chief of staff.

The downing of the plane earned unanimous international criticism: both the Soviet Union and the United States condemned the incident, not accepting the reasoning given by Israel;[2]: 290 all member-nations of the International Civil Aviation Organization voted to censure Israel for the attack. Israel's Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, called it an "error of judgment", and Israel paid compensation to the victims' families.[3][1]

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 48 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Wow, I feel like this would never happen today. If anything, the US would give Israel another 20 billion worth of military equipment, claim the plane was a woke HAMAS tunnel, and actively support Israel shooting down even more passenger aircraft.

[–] banana_lama@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago

Who says they didn't give them the money they paid to the victims

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