Plane May Have Been Shot Down

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30629, 21 December 1964, Page 13

Plane May Have Been Shot Down

(N.Z.P.A.. Reuter—Copyright)

CAIRO, December 20.

An unidentified private plane believed to be American crashed in the Nile Delta yesterday and unconfirmed reports said it was shot down by Egyptian jet fighters after refusing to acknowledge signals to land.

Two people aboard the plane were killed, police said. The unconfirmed but usually reliable reports said the plane was asked to land by two Egyption MiG fighters east of Alexandria. It refused to acknowledge the signals and was shot down while flying north towards the Mediterranean.

An American embassy spokesman in Cairo said he had no knowledge of the crash or whether the plane involved was American. Police at Abu Hommos, about 25 miles east of Alexandria, said the Fairchild aircraft crashed at 11 a.m. local time. They said two badly burned bodies were taken from the plane. Sources quoted by United Press International said the plane flew from Aqaba, Jordan, and was sighted over U.A.R, air space. The sources said the MiGs went up to intercept it but when the MiGs tried to guide it toward Cairo Airport it tried to fly north, the opposite direction.

The sources said the plane

was reported to have photographic equipment aboard. The nationalities of the two persons dead in the wreckage of the twin-engine Fairchild plane were not known immediately. Police said a pilot’s licence issued in Kenya was found in the wreckage. A United States Embassy spokesman said an embassy official had left for the scene of the crash.