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Shock. In Jerusalem, Premier Golda Meir abhorred the loss of life, but also blamed the incident on the French pilot. Not even Israel was totally immune from shock. "I'm not proud of it, and I don't believe it's helpful," said one Israeli diplomat in a guarded comment. With national elections coming up in the fall, government leaders painstakingly dissociated themselves from any responsibility for what was finally described as a "military decision" to shoot down the plane. In fact, the young but experienced Phantom pilots had radioed for instructions before each move. At a weekend press conference in Tel Aviv, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan carefully separated himself from the events in Sinai. He did say, however, that his government would welcome an investigation of the incident and suggested that a "hot line" be set up between Egypt and Israel as a means of preventing such accidents in the future.
The ill-fated jet was Flight 4114, which left Benghazi on the regular run to Cairo. Flying along the Mediterranean coast, the plane turned south at El Alamein, then northeast at El Fayoum for the approach to Cairo. Inexplicably, Captain Bourges missed Cairo by a wide margin; the only reasonable explanation for his error was heavy cloud conditions over the area that afternoon that might have affected his navigational equipment.
The plane crossed the Suez Canal and was over Sinai before the captain sighted what he thought were Egyptian MIGs flying wingtip to wingtip with him. Actually, the planes were Israeli Phantoms alerted by radar. The Israelis were more sensitive than usual to any invasion of their air space that day, for two reasons. One was an odd rumor that Arab fedayeen were planning some sort of kamikaze raid on Israel using a disguised civilian airliner. The other was a more substantial report that a commando of trained Al-Fatah guerrillas was flying from Libya to Cairo en route to camps in Syria and Lebanon.
Israeli pilots who took part in the shooting appeared at a press conference in Tel Aviv; they were identified only as "Y" and "S." They claimed that they had flown to within 15 ft. of the Libyan jet, indicating by thumb signals that Bourges should descend and land at Bir Gifgafa airbase in Sinai. Bourges, they said, made the proper response by lowering his landing gear, and his altitude gradually dropped from 15,000 ft. to 1,500 ft. But he also indicated by hand signals that he was turning west in the direction of Cairo. When he picked up speed and refused to land, the Israelis said, the Phantoms first fired in front of him, then at his wingtips, and only then at the plane itself. Crippled by their cannon, the 727 made a bad wheels-up landing on the Sinai sand. It hit, bounced and burst into flames. "He did a fairly poor job of it," said one of the Phantom pilots.