On February 21, 1973, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 left Tripoli and after a brief stopover in Benghazi, began its journey to Cairo with 113 people on board. Tragically, the plane drifted into Israeli airspace over the Sinai Peninsula, then under Israeli control, and was shot down after ignoring repeated requests to change its flight path while under fighter escort.
Six years after the 1967 war and only months before the Yom Kippur War, Israel was on a high state of alert in February of 1973. Flight 114, finding itself without visual references as a result of a sandstorm, was forced to rely on its instruments to navigate its way to Cairo. However, due to navigational and instrument error, it drifted off course and drifted into Israeli airspace. Unfortunately, the pilots did not relay their fears that they were lost to Egyptian air traffic control and began their descent into what they must have assumed was Cairo's airport.
Read Full Article »