MiG pilot may have been fleeing Libya

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 8

MiG pilot may have been fleeing Libya

NZPA-Reuter Catanzaro The Italian authorities believed yesterday that the pilot of a Soviet-built MiG23 fighter plane which crashed in southern Italy on Friday was a Libyan fleeing from his country, sources close to the Defence Ministry said. The Ministry confirmed earlier that ,the plane was an export version of the MiG23 bearing Libyan markings, and that documents in Arabic had been found on board and were being translated. The plane was destroyed when it hit a mountain, killing the pilot and scattering wreckage over a big area. The police and para-mih-tary Carabinieri were keeping the public away from the crash site, and also barred them from the funeral of the pilot. His body was badly charred, but he was described by eyewitnesses as a man of about 30 whose helmet bore the name “Ezzeadan Koal” in Arabic.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said the aircraft was unarmed and carried no photo-reconnaissance equipment. It did not have longrange tanks, and its remaining fuel would not have enabled it to reach any country outside Italy. The sources close to the Ministry said that because of this, the earlier idea that the plane had been on a spy mission was now discounted and that it seemed likely the pilot had been seeking asylum. Civil and military inquests hate already begun into the affair which so far has

brought no comment from the Libyan People’s Office in Rome. A Socialist deputy, Mr Falco Accame, a former president of the Parliamentary Defence Commission, said he would ask the Government how the MiG23 managed to slip unnoticed under the radar network covering southern Italy. He will also ask whether the MiG was equipped with Italian radar-blocking devices. Previous Italian Governments have sold these devices abroad but have denied that any have gone to Arab countries.