TIMES OF ISRAEL
The El Al plane crash you never heard of
Lili Eylon
August 4, 2023

It was El Al’s regular semi-weekly flight from London via Paris and Vienna to Tel Aviv, carrying 51 passengers and seven crew members. Travelers included 12 Americans, 15 Israelis, four Britons, three with German passports, four Canadians, five Frenchmen, one Pole, one Swede, and seven hopeful immigrants from the Soviet Union. Suddenly, over the Bulgarian town of Petritch, bordering Greece and former Yugoslavia, two Yak 23 fighter planes of the Bulgarian Air Force opened fire at the Israeli aircraft. Within minutes, according to eyewitness Nir Baruch, Israel’s representative in Sofia, the pastoral landscape was strewn with human remains and the wreckage of the American-made Lockheed Constellation. READ MORE