|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pilot: We saw smoke trails
TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- The pilot of an Israeli airliner targeted in a missile attack spotted smoke trails following the plane seconds after liftoff from Mombasa, Kenya. But Rafi Marek decided to continue to Tel Aviv, the scheduled destination, after checking that the aircraft was working properly. Holidaymakers among the 261 passengers and crew sat back in their seats unaware the plane had been fired on. They were only told after the Arkia Airlines Boeing 757 entered Israeli airspace. The attack coincided with a suicide bomb at the Israeli-owned Paradise hotel in Mombasa in which 11 people are reported to have died. (Full story) The weekly charter flight landed safely at Tel Aviv at 1240 local time (1040 GMT) on Thursday. Marek told CNN: "Immediately after we took off from Mombasa at a very low altitude, we felt a little blow to the plane. We saw two white stripes passing us by. I couldn't tell what it was. "We saw two smoke trails following us and they vanished after a little bit, after a couple of seconds. "The question was raised about an emergency landing. We checked all the systems. The plane behaved perfectly normally. We announced to Mombasa air control that we would continue as normal. "Some of us in the crew did think that perhaps we had been shot at but we weren't sure. So having heard of the tragic incident that had occurred in a hotel in Mombasa we did think it was likely to be connected. "Since some of the passengers had also heard and seen some of these white trails we talked to them, we reassured them according to the cabin crew's report. "No one was particularly bothered or upset in the cabin, everyone understood, they took it in their stride. Everyone was very relaxed during the flight. In fact as far as we were concerned the whole flight till we landed back in Tel Aviv was absolutely routine."
At the airport waiting relatives hugged loved ones as they filed through the departure gate. One woman passenger told CNN: "When we took off we heard a noise on the lefthand side of the plane and someone on the lefthand side said it was smoke. "Everyone was like: 'No, it was nothing.' Only towards the end of the flight they told us what had happened." Another woman tourist said: "We heard a bang. They told us they thought a bird had stuck in the engine. They knew from the start what had happened but they did not tell us." She said after passengers were finally told, she saw an Israeli military plane flying as an escort. Another woman said: "When the airplane started to leave we heard a boom. The staff didn't tell us anything until 10 or 15 minutes before we came to Israel." After that she saw a military plane flying alongside. Ezra Gozlan, who was sitting at the back of the plane, told Israel Radio: "All the wheels were in the air and then we heard the explosion. It (the missile) went about one metre above the wing." At least one missile, possibly two, were fired at the plane, said airline spokeswoman Magda Malikalanpar. Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "If it was indeed missiles shot against civilian aviation this is a very dangerous escalation of terror. "It means that terror organisations and those regimes that stand behind then are capable of acquiring weapons that can bring about mass casualties in every place in the world. "Today they fired missiles at Israeli planes, tomorrow they'll fire missiles at U.S. planes, British planes, planes from every state."
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
