While following media reports about the search for the missing helicopter, one mind's went back to April 9, 1992, when a Russian-built private plane (AN-26), carrying Yasser Arafat, the then head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, crashlanded in the Libyan desert after getting caught in a sand-storm.
The plane was carrying Arafat from Sudan to Libya. Before-crash landing, the pilot of the aircraft informed the control tower with which he was in touch that he was crash-landing in the desert due to difficulties faced because of the sand-storm. Thereafter, all communications ceased with the aircraft as well as with Arafat's security officers.
The wreckage of the plane was spotted in the desert in southern Libya by a Libyan air force plane. Search parties were immediately sent out into the area. When one of the rescue teams reached the spot 12 hours after radio contact with the plane had been lost, it found 10 of the 13 members on board the plane, including Arafat, alive. The two Palestinian pilots of the aircraft and a technician were dead. Arafat had some bruises on his body and an injury on his forehead.
The cockpit was totally destroyed by the crash-landing, but the cabin in which Arafat and the others were seated received only minor damage. Arafat's security officers were not able to contact their headquarters and guide the rescue effort because all communication equipment on the aircraft had been destroyed by the crash and the communication sets of Arafat's security officers had stopped functioning.
Only after the rescue team reached Arafat was he able to talk to PLO headquarters.
In any enquiry into the mishap to YSR's helicopter, the following questions may have to be addressed:
