IAF hopes new searches will recover body of pilot missing 46 years

Lt. Yakir Naveh crashed into Lake Kinneret on a training flight in 1962.

By YAAKOV KATZ
yakir naveh 88 (photo credit: )
yakir naveh 88
(photo credit: )
Close to half a century after he disappeared, the IDF believes it is closer than ever to recovering the body of missing air force pilot Lt. Yakir Naveh, who crashed into Lake Kinneret on a training flight in 1962. Next week, the Israel Air Force team directing the searches will receive final sonar images from the crash site to analyze in an effort to locate the fuselage of the Fuga jet, where they hope Naveh's body will be found. In May 1962, Naveh was an air force instructor flying with IAF cadet Oded Kuton. Naveh's aircraft was part of a three-plane formation that was flying low over the Kinneret. Naveh's Fuga suddenly hit the water and while Kuton, who was the pilot, tried to pull up, it dipped back down and was eventually swallowed by a massive wave. Naveh was 23 at the time. Rescue teams were immediately dispatched, but they only recovered bits and pieces of the plane. Almost a year later, a fishing boat's anchor got stuck on something heavy on the seabed; it turned out to be the pilot's seat with Kuton still strapped into it. Parts of the Fuga turned up over the years, but the searches for Naveh did not produce results. Recently, however, under the command of Lt.-Col. Zohar, the IAF's Unit for the Location of Missing Servicemen renewed the searches, believing that with new and advanced technology it would be possible to finally retrieve Naveh. "Our responsibility is to the soldier," Zohar told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. "And we will do everything we can to locate the missing serviceman and bring him to a Jewish burial." Zohar does not hide his optimism that Naveh may be found by the end of the year. Next week he will meet with representatives of the navy, which recently surveyed the crash site with a new three-dimensional sonar system. "Once we get the map of the scene we will search for objects that look like they may be a chair or the body of the plane," he said. The next stage, which Zohar said he hoped would take place by November, would be to send divers to retrieve the pieces of the craft and hopefully Naveh's body. The next two months are the ideal time for diving in the Kinneret since from November the water becomes too murky to continue. "My wish is to send the divers down and find Yakir sitting in his chair like the day he took off," Zohar said. "We know, however, that it will not be that easy."