Missile misses by three feet

Israeli tourists today told how a terrorist missile came within three feet of blowing their plane out of the sky.

As they settled themselves into the flight home to Tel Aviv the 261 passengers looked forward to their refreshments, perhaps reminiscing about their holiday on the idyllic Indian Ocean coast.

It was then many of them heard an explosion outside the fuselage.

"All the wheels were in the air and then we heard the explosion. The missile went about one metre above the wing," said Ezra Gozlan, a 62-year-old who was sitting at the back of flight 582.

"The moment I heard the explosion I looked out of the window and saw the smoke. It was a bazooka or something like that," he said. "I said to someone 'It's a missile'. He said 'No, maybe something got caught in the engine.'"

Kerry Levy, 25, said the aircraft's wheels had just lifted off the runway at Mombasa airport when she felt a rattle. "It felt like something fell off the wing," she said.

On the ground airport staff had watched in horror as a missile shot towards the plane. Some witnesses reported seeing two missiles being fired at the aircraft from an allterrain vehicle one mile from Mombasa airport. Two exploded missile casings were later found near the airport.

Magda Mali-Kalantar of Arkia, the holiday company that chartered the flight, said: "Seconds after the plane had taken off, ground staff saw a missile shoot towards it." Landing at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv five and a half hours later, several passengers said they saw a 300-metre smoke trail on the left of the plane as it took off.

"We heard a boom very close to us and we didn't know what it was," passenger Eli Yona said.

During the flight the pilot, who had decided against making an emergency landing, informed his passengers there had been a "technical problem". It was only when the plane entered Israeli airspace that they were told of the attempted missile attack.