Posted on 02/23/2011 7:47:58 AM PST by Red Badger
A Libyan air force plane has crashed near Benghazi after its crew bailed out because they refused to carry out orders to bomb the city, a Libyan newspaper reported.
Captain Attia Abdel Salem al Abdali and his number two Ali Omar Gaddafi bailed out of the Russian-made Sukhoi-22 plane and parachuted to safety, Quryna newspaper's online version quoted the source - a colonel at an air base near Benghazi - as saying
The aircraft, which took off from Tripoli, came down near the city of Ajdabiya, 160 kilometres south-west of Benghazi, the newspaper reported.
Benghazi and most of eastern Libya has not been under central control since an uprising last week against the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
In a televised speech on Tuesday night, Mr Gaddafi threatened violence against groups who were defying his rule.
Benghazi-based Quryna is Libya's most reliable media outlet. It was owned by a media group linked to Mr Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam but since Tripoli lost control over Benghazi it has begun to report openly on events in the city and further afield.
Imagine the irony if the jet had crashed into a crowd.
Lots of desert there to put it down in........
um why crash a good jet, just land it somewhere
Cue in the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah”
Russian-made Sukhoi-22...............
Re-targeting on a certain presidential palace in Tripoli would have been better.
They didn’t ‘earn their pay.’
He probably not there................
So it can’t be used by another crew to shoot at citizens?
Just a thought.
I’m wondering if they were given a restricted amount of fuel or otherwise prevented from landing at a suitable runway, say, in Malta.
Otherwise, why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?
And in other news Obama called Wisconsin’s Gov Walker a Nazi.
Of course Muslims wouldn’t lie, to heat things up either, would they?
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