Yadlin: Ramon was the young pilot in the reactor attack

The commander of the military colleges, Air Force pilot Major General Amos Yadlin, participated with Colonel Ilan Ramon in Operation "Opera" - the attack on the nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981

Ramon is interviewed after returning from the bombing of the Iraqi reactor in 1981

Television photo: Channel 10

The commander of the military colleges, Air Force pilot Major General Amos Yadlin, participated with Colonel Ilan Ramon in Operation "Opera" - the attack on the nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. In an interview with the British newspapers "Daily Telegraph" and "The Times", yesterday, Yadlin said that Ramon was The youngest among the pilots of the eight planes that took part in the attack. "We called him 'the boy,'" he said.

Ramon, then 27 years old, was selected for a mission in Iraq despite the fact that he had not previously participated in operational strikes. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1972.

When the Yom Kippur War broke out he was still in a pilot's course and therefore did not take an active part in the battles. Yadlin said that Ramon participated in planning the mission. He was responsible for choosing the route for the attack, for navigation and for calculating the fuel needed for it (a critical issue because of the great distance the planes traveled). Ramon asked for, and received, position number 8 in the structure: the last of the pilots. This position was considered particularly dangerous, because it was more vulnerable to attack attempts on the structure's way back to Israel.

Ramon volunteered to fly in this position, reasoning that he was the only one of the pilots who did not yet have children. Even in the preparations for the attack in Iraq, as before the flight into space, he mentioned the fact that his parents were Holocaust survivors. "If I can prevent a second holocaust, I am ready to sacrifice my life for that," Yadlin quoted Ramon as saying at the time. He added that these were not empty words. "We estimated, in the preparations for the attack, that one or two of the planes would be damaged. We were really worried when we took off," he said.

Yadlin said that Ramon was one of three candidates in the Air Force for the position of the first Israeli astronaut. "When he was chosen for the task, there was an absolute consensus between us that he was the right man." When asked why Ramon didn't become one of the top brass, Yadlin replied: "Ilan was too nice to become a general." To get there you need elbows."
Remnants of the shuttle were offered for sale online

By Yuval Dror

Hours after the crash of the space shuttle Columbia on Texas soil, offers from surfers to sell the pieces of the shuttle that were allegedly found at the crash sites began to appear on the American website for auctions, eBay.

The prices of the fragments increased within a few hours, but the eBay management was quick to delete the offers, after the prosecutor of the southern state of Texas made it clear that their sale was against the law.

Selling souvenirs from disaster sites is not new, not even on eBay. A few hours after the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, offers appeared on eBay to sell items found at the site of the collapse. On Saturday evening, the first items for sale began to appear on eBay and by yesterday morning about a thousand different offers had been collected, most of them for the sale of souvenirs from the shuttle such as assembly models, the mission badge of the STS-107 flight that crashed, or souvenir coins issued for the occasion.

A few hours later, offers appeared to sell fragments of the ferry, some at a price of about ten thousand dollars. A belt buckle found in the crash area was offered for sale at $9.99 and jumped to more than $300 within minutes.

NASA issued a message in which it calls on the citizens of Texas not to touch the fragments that fell to the ground, due to the fear that they are contaminated with toxic chemicals.
The prosecutor of the southern state of Texas, Michael Shelby, said at a press conference held at the space center in Boston that anyone who touches the fragments faces heavy penalties: "This is a federal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Let there be no doubt, I will file lawsuits in this matter", he clarified.
eBay spokesman Kevin Forsglove told the news agencies that the site's management expected that offers to sell scraps would appear on the site: "We know that whenever there is a large-scale event there are people who try to sell items related to that event. But from our experience it appears that most of the items offered for sale are items that are not related to the event."
According to him, after the terrorist events of September 11, one of the surfers on the site offered to sell bricks from the twin buildings and the Pentagon building that was damaged in the attack.

"I asked myself why does everyone want to die?"

This is what Ilan Ramon said shortly after returning from the reactor bombing in Iraq
"You walk down the street and come across Israelis who push and shout, and many times you ask yourself: you know why you're walking, you're ready to give everything you have for the people
these? In the end, you give it for all the people close to you."

This is what Ilan Ramon told immediately upon his return from the Air Force's Operation Opera, in which the nuclear reactor in Osirak, Iraq, was bombed in 81. Ramon was the youngest pilot who participated in the operation, and his position was a navigation officer. The full interview, conducted by journalist Menashe Raz, was broadcast yesterday for the first time on News 10. Below are its main points:

"Everyone wanted to fly, because this is a once-in-a-lifetime mission. I don't know if everyone asked themselves, but at least I asked myself, why does everyone want to die? It is not clear. You train in the army for many years and in the end maybe you are programmed somewhere to give what they invested in you.

"Once you are inside the operation then you don't think much about friends or the guys. You think about the task. you perform You look at the landscape, you pass all kinds of convoys of trucks, you see Bedouins, you see people.

"What I saw was attraction. You could see the reactor quite clearly in the pull. You see two more guys fold up and go in. In fact, when I lowered the nose there was already smoke over the target. At my exit you can already see a very serious explosion of the reactor. You don't actually see the things there falling and collapsing, but you see that there is actually a serious explosion with fire and you understand: you hit the target. We hit the target.

"From that moment of breaking contact, and especially a little after that when you start climbing, then there is a feeling of great emptiness. As if everything is over and nothing actually happened. When you recover from the sharp exit and from having passed those two dangerous and critical minutes, you begin to realize that everything went smoothly, and in fact, it kind of feels like it's over now. You know it ends well. that the mission was accomplished. Nothing happened to anyone. And all the fears you had, if you had them - and they weren't during the flight - were dispelled. You feel that it was actually much more than what actually happened."
The Ort Kiryat Motzkin school will be named after Ramon

At Ort Kiryat Motzkin yesterday, the Columbia space shuttle disaster was commemorated by setting up a commemorative corner and gathering 36 of the high school students who participated in the "solids growth in solution" experiment that was taken to the shuttle.

The idea for the experiment was initiated by the school and the Technion. Yesterday the mayor of Kiryat Motzkin, Haim Tzuri, and the CEO of Ort decided to name the upper division of the school after Ilan Ramon.

Four years ago, when the XNUMXth graders were in the XNUMXth grade, the experiment was conducted. Ort Motzkin won the competition to launch the experiment into space for a number of schools in Israel and joined NASA's "STARS" project, in which six schools from different countries sent experiments aboard the shuttle. In the main corridor of the school, a black cloth was spread with an inscription in memory of Lt. Col. Ilan Ramon . Boys and girls wearing shirts given to them by NASA and holding the image of the shuttle lit memorial candles and were commemorated by dozens of photographers and reporters from Israeli and foreign media.

Ilana Zibenberg, a student in the science class, was a member of a group of five students who flew to the US a year ago to perform a simulation of the experiment in Houston. Eder Moritz, also from the science class, was in the second group sent two weeks ago to meet Bermon and watch the launch of the shuttle.

Yesterday they both sat, holding hands, "I was very proud when the shuttle took off and we felt its huge boost," Moritz says, "Ramon was a role model for me. He was open and talked to us at eye level. I had a dream to be a pilot and an astronaut since I was a little boy, now the dream has been shaken a little."

The students told of the great happiness they felt when the experiment took off after so many rejections. "We were afraid that we would finish school before the shuttle took off," Moritz said, "Students in the schools that competed with us had long ago mobilized."

Siebenberg explains that the students followed the flight of the shuttle and received information about the progress of the experiment by e-mail from the shuttle. "You can say that the experiment was lost," said Siebenberg, "the data we received from the shuttle was partial. The intention was to get the experiment back and examine the crystal growth with an electron microscope." Siebenberg says her dream of doing astrophysics when she grows up has not been shaken by the disaster.

"The crew that perished represents us," Americans said proudly
Flags at half-mast above the White House and federal buildings across the US and people kneeling in churches and dedicating Sunday prayers to the memory of the 7 dead in the space shuttle Columbia disaster were yesterday the most prominent manifestations of the national mourning that descended on the US.
The human crew of the space shuttle Columbia ironically evoked reactions of pride among Americans. Again and again the broadcasts came back and mentioned that the crew included two women, one of Indian descent, one black and an Israeli pilot. "This is what America stands for," people said.

The disaster also revealed the hidden religious side of the hearts of Americans that many of them like to embrace in times of national distress. US citizens crowded the churches, synagogues and houses of worship across the country yesterday and expressed their grief over the loss of the ferry crew.

In the city of Titusville, in Florida, where many of the Kennedy Space Center employees live, Pastor David Waller called the shuttle's smoke trails, "a sparkling tear along the surface of heaven." At St. Bartholomew's Church, in New York, the names of the ferry crew members were read during mourning prayers. "The same creator who gave the name to the stars knows the oil of seven souls we mourn," said President George Bush a few hours after the shuttle disintegrated.

In Houston, Texas, the news of the loss of life of the seven ferry crew members was more than a national tragedy - it was news of a death in the family. At the "Francis" restaurant, which is located on NASA Highway No. 1, photos of the seven astronauts hung on the cash register, including a photo taken a few weeks ago at a birthday party for William C. McCall, a US Navy pilot and shuttle pilot.

Frankie Kamera, the owner of the restaurant, reflected on how sad it was that the crew members made it all the way to space and died above the skies of Texas - just minutes before the planned landing in Florida. "So close to home," he said sadly.

Across the street, inside the crumbling army barracks from World War II, which have been converted into a bar, a place where generations of astronauts drank beers and talked about space tours - a memorial wall has already been erected. One of the walls of the place was dedicated to the memory of the Challenger crew members, who crashed in 1986. We had to build another memorial wall for these children. We will make room for them", said the owner of the bar, Stan Eden.

And in a mourning ceremony similar to the one first conducted after the loss of the Challenger, a wall of flowers began to grow at the foot of the main entrance sign at the Johnson Space Center, in southeast Houston. There lives a community where its people like to say that they live on the same street as the astronauts.

Astonishment and disbelief were evident to the people living in the communities surrounding the space center. In a place where NASA is not just a workplace, but a place where the laundromat is called the "space cleaners" and its people travel the streets called Tzedek and Nega.
Andrea Smith whispered into her 4-year-old son's ear as she placed a bouquet of flowers near the sign. The boy watched the reports about the ferry crash the other day and asked his mother: "Where did they go?" "I think it's important for him to understand that they died and how close it was to us," said Smith.

At the entrance to the space center, 50-year-old Jane Fletcher joined the parade of people who came throughout the day to place wreaths, notes and other souvenirs at the base of the sign. She remembered doing a similar thing after the loss of the Challenger and this morning she brought her three daughters with her. She and her family had nice plans for the weekend. She and her husband, a NASA engineer, planned to take their daughters to the astronauts' homecoming ceremony, which was scheduled to take place yesterday at the space center.

Sharon: The death of the astronauts was not in vainby Gideon Alon

"A day will come and more Israeli astronauts will be launched into space," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday at the cabinet meeting that devoted a few minutes to the disaster of the Columbia space shuttle crash and the death of the astronauts on board, including Lt. Col. Ilan Ramon.

Sharon added that the astronauts who perished are part of the heavy price paid by the human race in its longing for knowledge and journeys to explore other worlds. According to him, "their death was not in vain. Man's journey into space will continue. The cooperation between the US and Israel in this area will also continue." Sharon expressed his confidence that each of the astronauts who will be launched in the future will carry on their hearts the memory of Ramon, the pioneer of the Israeli journey into space.

The Prime Minister said that he did not get to know Ramon personally, but he knew about his past as a daring fighter pilot and an outstanding commander. "I spoke with Ilan before he took off for his last mission and I also spoke during it. In my conversations with Ilan, I got to know a man of values, a man with immense love for this nation and this country. A person who is not worthy of taking in one bundle, the hope, dreams, history and future of all of us to a place far beyond what we ever imagined."

Sharon said that he spoke the other day with Ilan's father and his wife Rona Ramon and sent condolences and encouragement to "this wonderful family, a family we are all proud of". He also sent condolences to the families of the American astronauts, to President George Bush and to the people of the USA. "This hour reinforces the sense of shared destiny, the identity of values ​​and the shared vision of all of us that were fulfilled in Col. Ramon's journey to space," said Sharon.

US Ambassador to Israel Dan Kartzer, who was invited to the first part of the yeshiva, said that 17 days ago the Americans and Israelis raised their eyes to the sky with hope and pride as the shuttle Columbia made its way to its mission in space. According to him, the two nations shared in the same occasion the joy and appreciation for the heroism of the members of the Tsabarot team as well as the hope and dream that their mission will promote the good of humanity.
The American ambassador said that Ramon's words reminded me of the words of Archibald McLeish who said after one of the early Apollo flights that "to see the earth as we see it, small, blue and beautiful hovering in eternal silence, is to see ourselves sitting together with the surface of the earth , brothers who see that they are really brothers". At the end of his remarks, he noted that "the Americans and the Israelis are brothers, on earth and in space."

The mayor of Beer Sheva promised to commemorate Ramonby Zahar Rotem

Ramon / his schoolmate said that the character of the Israeli astronaut was an antithesis to a typical pilot

High school students in Be'er Sheva, yesterday. The Mayor of Beer Sheva, Ya'akov Turner, said that Ramon also took symbols of the city of Beer Sheva and the Air Force Museum in Hasteriz to the space shuttles

Photo: Alberto Dankberg, reporter for "Haaretz" in the south

The long and well-known debris trail left by the space shuttle Kolmovia also left its mark in Beer Sheva, the childhood city of Lt. Col. Ilan Ramon. "I met a lot of sadness today, a lot of sad people," said yesterday the mayor, Jacob Turner, who skipped between one memorial ceremony and another. "It is not easy. Ramon was in the headlines for a long time. They knew him and his family, they were waiting for him to return as a hero, and suddenly it happened. I felt almost physical pain in some people." Turner added that in the coming days "Beer Sheva will find a way"

To commemorate Ramon: a street, square or institution is expected to be named after him. Turner said yesterday that he knew Ramon in his days as commander of the flight school while Ramon was a pilot there. Turner said that Ramon took with him into space symbols of the city of Beer Sheva and of the Air Force Museum in Hasteriz.

In the afternoon, Ramon's memory was also commemorated at the Air Force Museum in the premises. Ramon, the one who was always clear to everyone that he would "get by in life", was immortalized in a special corner for him.

Along with the students of Makif D, the mayor participated in a memorial ceremony at the school towards noon, Shermon was one of his graduates. The students sat in silence and listened to sections in memory of Ramon and a slightly different rendition of "Hatshema Koli". Some of them wept.

There were also teachers and classmates of the first Israeli astronaut. Some of them came equipped with pictures of Ramon's wedding and graduation. One of the members, Prof. Reuven Segev, currently a lecturer in automotive engineering at Ben Gurion University, told the students that back then, during the school days, there was a "happy atmosphere" in the country. He told them about a social heyday, with dance parties almost every Friday and scooters in the schoolyard. "It was a completely different atmosphere from the one there today. We were in that period after the Six Day War, a period of euphoria. We felt that we had come out of great trouble into great light. We became an empire and thought it would last forever. The Air Force was the hero of the victory, and everyone wanted to get there," he explained later.

Another classmate, Liora Etzion, added: "He was a very serious guy. Everyone in the class copied, only he didn't. Part of everyone's shock probably stems from the fact that it was clear to everyone that Ilan would manage in life. He has nothing to worry about. His path was very natural, because the environment understood that he was of rare quality. He didn't have to bargain or argue to get things. The burden of proof does not apply to him. It was impossible to ignore his quality."

All these, the friends said yesterday, did not prevent Ramon from always being one of their own. Shortly before he was chosen to be the first Israeli astronaut, he came to a reunion of classmates, and even after that he kept in touch, as much as he could. In March of last year Prof. Segev at NASA visited him, and Ramon demonstrated to him how to land a spacecraft, using the simulator. There was someone who said yesterday that "even though the Air Force probably won't like it, Ilan was actually the antithesis of a typical pilot, and thus was his greatness. He was not the confident, arrogant character. Ilan was exactly the opposite."

The IDF sent a representative of the Chief Rabbinate to HoustonBy Amos Harel

The residents of Bronson, Texas yesterday near a sole, which was probably part of the suit of one of the astronauts

Photo: E.P

Last night, the IDF sent a representative of the military rabbinate to Houston, Texas, to help identify the body parts of the astronauts from the Columbia shuttle. The officer, in the rank of lieutenant colonel, specializes in identifying victims and burials.

If no parts of Col. Ilan Ramon's body are found, the army is expected to declare him an IDF casualty whose burial place is unknown. The person authorized to make such a decision is the chief military rabbi, Brigadier General Israel Weiss. The Rabbi can do so based on the announcement of an official about Ramon's death, and for this purpose it is possible to use the announcements of NASA and the President of the USA, George Bush. In such a case, Ramon's funeral will not take place, but it seems that some kind of official ceremony is expected - such as the dedication of a monument (but not a tombstone) to his memory, as was done in the past with regard to the remains of the "Dakar" submarine.

Upon learning of the ferry crash, the chief rabbi, Israel Lau, published a statement of mourning, in which he emphasized "the legacy of the ancestors that Ilan Ramon proudly carried with him." Rabbi Lau pointed out that the circumstantial evidence is sufficient to declare Ramon as a challet and to allow his wife, Ramona, to be buried, even if there is no body and burial place.

The military is still delaying the decision on how to mark the death of the Columbia crew members, until Ramon's status as an astronaut is determined. At this stage, the discussions on the possibility that Ramon will be promoted, after his death, to the rank of brigadier general have not been completed either. In terms of his age (48), his seniority in the Air Force and the mission in which he was killed, it seems that there is a basis for granting the rank.

Representatives of the IDF - the military attache in Washington, Major General Moshe Ivri-Soknik, and the air attache, Brigadier General Rani Falk - are in Houston, along with Israel's ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, and they are assisting the astronaut's family members.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said yesterday that Ramon was a "brave pilot". According to him, "This is how a grave will remain in our memory: (Israeli) first in realizing the vision of the journey to space."

Human body parts have been found at the ferry crash site in East Texas
The space agency NASA agreed to share an expert from Israel to identify bodies; Fragments and parts of the shuttle were found scattered over an area of ​​hundreds of square kilometers

In an unusual move, NASA agreed yesterday to share with an Israeli body identification expert in the process of examining and identifying the body parts that were found in the last two days in the area of ​​the Columbia crossing crash in Texas. The IDF attaché in the USA, Major General Moshe Evari-Soknik, stated that he emphasized to NASA representatives the importance that Israel and the Jewish religion see in identifying the body parts of Col. Ilan Ramon and bringing the deceased to the Israeli grave, and therefore it is interested in taking an active part in the locating process and the identification. It is not yet known how the bodies of the astronauts will be identified, but NASA personnel have DNA samples and other identifying marks that could help in the process.

Yesterday it was reported for the first time that parts of a human body had been found at the crash site in East Texas. NASA did not say what the condition of the remains was and whether it is possible to know which of the astronauts it is.

The responsibility for locating and identifying the body of the Israeli astronaut also rests with the Israeli military mission in the US, since Ramon is a colonel in the Air Force.

Photograph of a helmet, probably of one of the astronauts, in Texas

At the same time, news poured in yesterday from all over the US about finding fragments and parts of the ferry in an area of ​​hundreds of square kilometers. While the center of the area where the fragments were found was in the city of Palestine, not far from Dallas, fragments were discovered over a much larger radius.

In the city of Norwood, an intact and sooty astronaut's helmet was found, in San Augustine, citizens discovered a fragment with the symbol of Columbia and the STS-107 expedition on it. This symbol, with the names of all 7 astronauts and the flag of Israel next to Ramon's name, was sewn on the lapel of the astronauts' space suits and accompanied every item of The space mission.

Law enforcement authorities in Texas, with the help of NASA units as well as US Army helicopters launched from the nearby Fort Hood base, continued every day yesterday to search and locate fragments from the shuttle. The area where the fragments were scattered is mostly agricultural and forested, which makes it difficult to locate the pieces. NASA's goal is to try and find all the fragments, to try and reconstruct the last moments before the Columbia crash and find out the reasons for the accident.

The local police state that miraculously no one on the ground was injured in the crash. The metal fragments and the insulation tiles fell, among other things, into the office of a local dentist and one fragment even penetrated into a residence in Texas. A small metal container was discovered on a runway at an airport near Palestine and dozens of fragments were discovered in private yards of residents in the area.

The fracture detection process will focus on two main goals. The first is locating the remains of the astronauts' bodies, in order to bring them to burial, and the second is finding parts of the shuttle for the purpose of investigating the crash. It was estimated yesterday that the search process would continue for a few more days and that even after weeks more parts of the shuttle would be discovered.

A major concern of the heads of NASA, in the first hours after the crash, was that civilians would be harmed by the dangerous materials that might be among the debris. The shuttle's fuel contains components that could be dangerous, and there could also be a fear of contact with some of the materials used for the dozens of experiments on the shuttle, some of which are dangerous substances. This concern was misplaced, when it became clear that the public was attentive to calls not to touch the remains and instead called the local police every time a part of the ferry was found.

Students for whom Ramon performed an experiment will set up a memorial site

Upon learning of the ferry's crash, XNUMXth grade students gathered in Ort Kiryat Motzkin, at the home of one of the students, to discuss the disaster.
The students, including Dor Zafarir, Ido Rechter, Leila Feldman, Eder Moritz and Ariel Greenberg, and their physics teacher, Amira Birnbaum, had a special relationship with the Israeli astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon. He performed for them in space the fiscal experiment they had planned - a "chemical garden", six hours after the shuttle was launched into space, on January 16.

Today, a memorial site will be established in Ort Kiryat Motzkin in memory of Ramon
The students, who were chosen from among the schools in Israel to present the scientific experiment they planned in space, have been involved in the project with the Israeli astronaut for three years, and even met with him two years ago. The student Leila Feldman says that "the meeting with the first Israeli astronaut created in me a strong desire to engage in astrophysics when I grow up." According to Amira Birnbaum, "Ramon was portrayed in the meeting we held, as a special person, who spoke to the students at eye level. He cleared the stage for them, and mainly listened to their words and was interested in the experiment they planned."

A delegation of five students and their physics teacher visited the space shuttle facilities in Florida about two weeks ago, where they installed the fiscal experiment in a special chamber that Ramon launched into outer space.

One of the students, Dor Tzafir, even ordered Ramon, with the words "please activate", to press the button that launched the cell, containing the class science experiment, into space. The student delegation watched the launch of the spacecraft, a "spectacular sight that arouses excitement", according to Feldman, and for two days the students worked to update the "Chemical Garden" experiment in the chamber that launched Ramon into space.

The experiment was designed to investigate chemical growth in space of solids (two chemical compounds) in a liquid known as "glass water" - glass dissolved in water. The experiment in space is designed to isolate the fiscal forces that act on the Earth's surface (such as gravity) in order to better understand the chemical processes that cause compounds to solidify.