Low Level Jet Practice Mission Runs in a vast Negev Wilderness
Tragic Crash In Low level Bomb Run Zone of Negev Ramon Crater
Dodging Imaginary enemy Jets staying on Target is Part of Mission
November 12, 2010
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I briefed hundreds of jet aircraft on practice low level bomb runs before departure on designated fixed bomb runs during the cold war.
The bomb runs were laid out in areas chosen due to a match of their topography with that of targets in the Soviet Union. I have watched many jets piloted by Israelis go on practice bomb runs in the Ramon Crater zone from the Ramon Observation Point in the Negev. The Negev of Israel has a lot of topography similar to that of Iran, Syria, and Eastern Lebanon. I always go to the Ramon Crater on my visits to Israel, hoping to see another practice run using live ammunition, and usually am not disappointed. Their drop target is to the south side of the crater because it is more remote and void of humans.
I first went to the Ramon Crater to geologically survey the ancient volcanic activity, but on my first trip I saw them making their bomb runs just south of the southern rim of the crater, and I have made many trips since that time.
Makhtesh Ramon (Ramon Crater/Makhtesh) is a geological feature of Israel’s Negev desert. Located at the peak of Mount Negev, some 85 km south of the city of Beersheba, the landform is not actually an impact crater from a meteor, but rather is the world’s largest makhtesh. The crater is 40 km long and 2-10 km wide, and is shaped like an elongated heart.
The only settlement in the area is the small town of Mitzpe Ramon (“Ramon Observation Point”) located on the northern edge of the crater. Today the crater and surrounding area forms Israel’s largest national park, the Ramon Nature Reserve.
The Negev desert was covered by an ocean. Slowly, this started to recede northwards leaving behind a hump-shaped hill. The hump was slowly flattened by water and climatic forces. Then the Arava Rift Valley was formed, with rivers changing their courses, carving out the inside of the crater which was a softer rock than that overlying.
The crater bottom continued to deepen at a much faster rate than the surrounding walls, which gradually increased in height. As the crater deepened, more layers of ancient rock were exposed with rocks at the bottom of the crater being much older. Today, the crater is 500m deep with the deepest point being Ein Saharonim (Saharonim Spring) which also contains the makhtesh’s only natural water source which sustain much of the wildlife in the makhtesh including onagers and ibex.
Makhtesh Ramon contains a diversity of rocks including clay hills known for their fantastic red and yellow colors and forms. Impressive mountains rise at the borders of the crater – Har Ramon (Mt. Ramon) at the southern end, Har Ardon (Mt. Ardon) at the north-eastern end, and two table mountains – Har Marpek (Mt. Marpek – “Elbow”), and Har Katum (Mt. Katum – “Chopped”) along the southern wall. The hills to the north-eastern edge of the makhtesh were once entirely covered by spiral ammonite fossils, ranging from the size of snails to that of tractor wheels although these have mainly been extracted so only smaller fossils can be found here today.
Giv’at Ga’ash, a black hill in the north of the makhtesh was once an active volcano which erupted thousands of years ago and caused it to be covered in lava which quickly cooled in the open air, converting it into basalt. Limestone covered by basalt can also be found in smaller black hills in the southern part of the makhtesh, including Karnei Ramon.
Shen Ramon (Ramon’s Tooth) is a rock made of magma which hardened whilst underground.
It later rose up through cracks in the Earth’s surface, and today stands in striking contrast with the nearby creamy coloured southern wall of the crater, as a black sharp-edged rock.
In the centre of the makhtesh is Ha-Minsara (The Carpentry Shop), a low hill made up of black prismatic rocks, and interestingly, the rectangular pipes on the side of the hill are made of the same sort of sand found on beaches. As such, this is the only place in the world where prisms made of heated sand turned into liquid which, in cooling naturally formed rectangular and hexagonal prisms, can be seen. These prisms lost no space in the middle during formation.
Begin Excerpt from THE JERUSALEM POST
Miscalculation in altitude may have caused F-16I jet crash
By YAAKOV KATZ
11/11/2010 21:54
Preliminary findings of IAF investigation point to human error; Ashkenazi says everything possible will be done to prevent future accidents.
A human error – possibly a miscalculation in altitude – was what caused an F-16I fighter jet to crash late Wednesday night in southern Israel killing two airmen, according to preliminary findings of an Israeli Air Force investigation.
The remains of IAF pilot Maj. Amihai Itkis, 28, and navigator Maj. Emanuel Levi, 30, were found Thursday
afternoon after almost 24 hours of searches throughout the Ramon Crater. IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan notified the pilot and navigator’s families of the news.
IAF officers said that the F-16I – Israel’s newest and most-advanced fighter jet – would remain grounded until the air force could rule out that a mechanical malfunction caused the crash. One possibility under investigation is that the plane’s entire electrical system shut down, preventing the crew from issuing a distress call.
Other possibilities under investigation are that a bird hit the plane and caused the crash or that the pilot simply miscalculated his altitude during the night flight. While the plane has systems to warn of low altitude, a pilot is able to set the altitude at which the alarm should go off. It is unclear, at this stage, at what altitude Itkis set the system.
IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said Thursday that an investigation into the incident had been opened immediately, and that everything possible would be done to prevent future accidents of the same kind.
“Most urgent for us is to uncover the cause of the crash and find out if something hit the plane or if the crash was caused by human error or a mechanical malfunction,” a senior IAF officer said Thursday.
During the day, search teams uncovered the plane’s black box which, if not overly damaged, might be able to provide insight into the cause of the crash and possibly enable investigators to reconstruct the dialogue between Itkis and Levi.
“The crew did not issue a distress call,” the officer said.
“It simply disappeared from the radar screen and other pilots saw a huge explosion on the ground below.”
Itkis and Levi’s plane was at the head of a formation that was drilling dogfights with enemy aircraft. It was their third flight of the day and their second at night. The plane’s last maneuver was intercepting an “enemy” aircraft at around 11,000 feet, following which it lower its altitude until it suddenly hit the ground.
Called the Sufa by the IAF, the F-16I is the IAF’s newest plane and alongside the F-15I, it’s most advanced. Fitted to Israel’s specifications, these aircraft are different from any other F-16, even those in the service of the US Air Force.
The Sufa was the first F-16 in the IAF armed with the AMRAAM air-to-air missile, giving it superior survivability and the ability to shoot down other jets up to 50 kilometers away.
It also is equipped with a Northrop Grumman APG- 68 radar, which is generations more advanced than the radars now in service
in the IAF fleet.
The Synthetic Aperture Radar system and Litening navigation pod gives the F-16I all-weather, day and night attack capabilities.
The plane has proven its air superiority in Israel’s recent conflicts during the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in 2009 but has also encountered some problems since arriving in Israel.
While Israel purchased 102 airplanes, one crashed during a landing in the 2006 Second Lebanon War due to a malfunction.
Last September, another F-16I had to make an emergency landing after experiencing engine failure during a routine training flight.
The pilot decided to shut down the engine and made an emergency landing at the nearby Ramon Air Force Base in the Negev. After that incident, Nehushtan grounded the planes so they could all be inspected.
A year earlier, Nehushtan also grounded the plane after formaldehyde was found in the cockpit of one of the aircraft.
The decision to suspend training flights was made after a number of pilots complained of a bad smell coming from the cockpit of one of the planes. The IDF Medical Branch conducted tests and discovered that the smell was caused by a type of formaldehyde known to be carcinogenic in high concentration.
While air accidents are mostly down in the IAF, there have been a number of tragic crashes in recent years, most recently during a search-and-rescue exercise in Romania when an IAF Sikorsky CH-53 – known as the Yasour – crashed in the Carpathian Mountains, killing six IAF airmen and a Romanian military officer.
Last month, Nehushtan decided to temporarily suspend a nationwide IAF exercise after a Black Hawk helicopter flew into an electrical cable
in northern Israel. No one was injured. In July however, a female air force cadet was lightly injured after ejecting from the cockpit of her Efroni single-engine turboprop training aircraft during a landing.
In September, 2009, Assaf Ramon, son of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, was killed in a training accident. Ramon was flying an older model F-16 that exploded.
In 2008, two pilots were killed when their Zukit training plane crashed in the Negev and another two veteran reserve pilots were killed when their Cobra attack helicopter crashed in the North.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.