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September 13, 2009 (by Asif Shamim) - An F-16A from the IDFAF crashed in the Southern hills near Hebron on Sunday. The pilot who was killed was the son of the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in 2003. The pilot Lt. Assaf Ramon, 20, was on his 47th training flight since completing his pilot training in June 2009. The aircraft crashed during a routine flight as part of the advanced pilot training course. IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan and the head of the IDF Manpower Division Avi Zamir personally delivered the sad...

An F-16 from the IDFAF crashed in the Southern hills near Hebron. The pilot who was killed was the son of the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in 2003. he pilot Lt. Assaf Ramon, 20, was on his 47th training flight since completing his pilot training in June 2009. He was flying an unarmed training mission when the accident happened. IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan and the head of the IDF Manpower Division Avi Zamir personally delivered the sad news to his mother, Rona Ramon's at there home. The news of the...

Tragedy struck the family of late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon again Sunday, when his son Asaf Ramon was killed in a crash while flying an Israel Air Force aircraft. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut was one of seven crew members killed when the U.S. space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry on February 1, 2003. Asaf Ramon's aircraft crashed near the settlement of Bnei Haver, in the rugged terrain of the Hebron Hills. The Israel Defense Forces carried out an aerial and terrestrial search of the area for some 90 minutes before locating the crash site. Advertisement IAF Blackhawk ("Yanshuf") helicopters...

Israelis are good at moving on; perhaps too good. Americans can't seem to The third anniversary of the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster passed last week (February 1 on the English calendar, January 29 on the Hebrew calendar) with little fanfare here. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Rona Ramon, widow of fallen Israeli astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon, and several other Columbia shuttle family members here at Rona's invitation. Ynet (Hebrew) devoted a brief to it; Ynetnews didn't even get to it. A small group of American scientists came to the country to dedicate spots in the Ramon Crater (not...

The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster happend on Saturday 1st, February, 2003 and was the second Space Shuttle Disaster and the first shuttle lost on landing. There was shock around the world over the tragedy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on January 16th, 2003 at 9.39am CST. Columbia (Flight STS-107) was on a 16-day science research mission in Earth orbit which performed experiments in space. It was the 113th mission. Columbia was the oldest space shuttle in the fleet of four. It was the first space shuttle to be launched in Earth orbit in 1981. The crew of Space Shuttle...

The families of the six American astronauts killed in the Columbia shuttle disaster a year ago will visit Israel at the invitation of Rona Ramon, the wife of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, reports ynet. The visit is supposed to take place in March and last for a week, said Evelyn Husband, the wife of the commander of the crew, Rick. "I am very close to Rona and love her with all my heart," Mrs. Husband said of the wife of Ilan Ramon, who was the first Israeli in space. "Despite our differences - she is Jewish and I am Christian...

<p>January 23, 2004 -- JERUSALEM — Disintegrating pages of a diary that an Israeli astronaut wrote during the doomed Columbia space shuttle mission were miraculously found in Texas, it was disclosed yesterday. Ilan Ramon, an Israeli air force combat pilot, recorded his thoughts about the mission, starting from takeoff, in the handwritten journal.</p>

Columbia disaster astronaut's diary found Pieces of an Israeli astronaut's diary, which plunged to earth with the stricken Columbia space shuttle, have been found in a field. The pages of Ilan Ramon's journal were found by a native American searching fields in Texas shortly after the crash in February last year. Initially, it was not known what the pieces of paper were. But when they were shown to Ramon's wife she confirmed it as his Hebrew handwriting. Many of the pages were bleached as they tumbled into the atmosphere at super-heated temperatures. But Israeli forensic scientists, helped by museum manuscript...

Oct. 15, 2003 Torah scroll dedication held in memory of Ilan Ramon By JPOST.COM STAFF Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon Photo: AP A Torah Scroll dedication ceremony took place in Yad Vashem Wednesday in honor Israel's first astronaut, Colonel Ilan Ramon. The Torah scroll will be kept in Yad Vashem. The Torah scroll was presented to Ramon's widow Rona by a New York donor, and will be carried by IDF soldiers and officers visiting concentration camps in Poland under the auspices of the annual "Witnesses in Uniform" program, the IDF Spokesperson reported. Astronauts Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana...

NASA informed the Ramon family early this morning that remains of astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon had been found and identified with certainty. IDF Rabbi Lt.-Col Tzvi Black, in Houston for the purpose of taking part in the identification process, confirmed the findings. Ilan Ramon will be buried in Israel next week in a military ceremony, after which his family will observe the traditional seven-day mourning period. The Israel Air Force that Ramon took along with him to space was also found in its entirety. U.S. President George Bush, who took part in the memorial ceremony for the seven astronauts yesterday,...

Translation by me from Hebrew to English: Tonia Volfermn, the mom of Ilan Ramon, of blessed memory, died this morning at the old age home in Omer. On Israel Military Radio it was said that Volfermn was sick in a very hard disease for some time, and did not know about her son's voyage to space or of his death.

WASHINGTON - A NASA safety engineer warned days before Columbia broke apart that he feared the shuttle was at risk for a devastating breach near its left wheel, and he suggested people in the U.S. space agency weren't adequately considering the threat. "We can't imagine why getting information is being treated like the plague," the engineer wrote in one of a number of e-mails released Friday that describe greater concerns about Columbia's safety in the days before its breakup. Other documents NASA released show that Columbia may have been struck by as many as three large chunks of foam that...

opinion Why That Texas Town is Named “Palestine” Dr. Rafael Medoff 19 February 2003 The fact that the space shuttle Columbia broke apart in the vicinity of a Texas town named “Palestine” has been the subject of much conversation in the Middle East. In Cairo, the New York Times reports, “the average cafe denizen” noted the presence of an Israeli astronaut on board, as well as the reports “that it apparently began crumbling over Palestine, Texas,” and concluded that Allah was punishing America for supporting Israel. In the Gulf kingdom known as the United Arab Emirates, a newspaper columnist expressed...

Feb. 19, 2003 ADL: Accounts on net blaming Israel, Jews for Columbia's downing proliferating By MELISSA RADLER NEW YORK - Conspiracy theories blaming Jews and Israel for the disintegration of NASA space shuttle Columbia last month are circulating the Internet at an alarming rate, the Anti-Defamation League said Wednesday. The online hate speech, tracked by the ADL on Web sites, chat rooms, bulletin boards and e-mails, includes allegations the US and Israel destroyed the Columbia to divert attention from the Iraq conflict, that Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon was a spy, and that Jews and Israelis were complicit in the shuttle's...

February 12th, 2003 Col. Ilan Ramon Laid to Rest Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, was buried yesterday in Nahalal Cemetery in northern Israel with full military honors. Family members, high-ranking IDF and Israel Air Force personnel and dozens of his friends accompanied Col. Ramon's coffin on its last journey. The ceremony was modest as per the family's request and Heads of State, members of the public and the media were asked to stay away. The IDF Chief of the General Staff, the Commander of the Israel Air Force and the former President of Israel, Eizer Weizman, were present at...

In space, John Lennon's song "Imagine" was one of the astronaut wake-up calls. Tuesday, it was the tune by which Israel's first astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, was finally laid to rest. Ramon, one of seven who died aboard the the shuttle Columbia when it broke apart on February 1, was memorialized on Monday after his coffin landed in Israel at a national ceremony broadcast around the world. He was laid to rest Tuesday at a private, low-key military ceremony at Moshav Nahalal's cemetery, where some of the giants in Israeli history, including war hero Moshe Dayan, are buried. The media...

The Israeli Air Force saluted their fallen fighter pilot and astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon today with a flyover of four F-16s above his burial site just as his funeral came to an end. As the planes flew in formation toward the Nahalal cemetery in northern Israel, one of them veered off to the right as it passed the burial ground. Moments beforehand three rounds of gunfire reverberated though the Galilee hills, signifying the end of the hourlong funeral. A policeman at a roadblock set up to keep the public away from the site, in keeping with the family's wishes, bowed...

February 11th, 2003 Tribute to Israel's Space Pioneer Col. Ilan Ramon's remains were identified by NASA on Febuary 5, 2003 and yesterday, Febuary 10, his flag draped coffin was flown home to Israel. A morose ceremony was held in Lod Air Force Base, with Ilan's family, Israeli politicians, Army leadership, NASA representatives and schoolchildren present. Eight of Col. Ramon's fellow air force colonels carried his coffin into the hanger, as Col. Ramon's son, Assaf, wearing his father's bright blue NASA flight jacket, wrapped his arms around his younger brother, whilst wiping tears from his eyes. Rona Ramon, Ilan's wife, held...

Israeli leaders eulogized the country's first astronaut Monday evening in a memorial ceremony that took place shortly after Ilan Ramon's remains were flown home from the United States in a coffin. "We could not have had a better and more fitting representative" than Ramon, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at the ceremony, which took place at the Lod Air Force base. “His image, projected from above, was the reflection of Israel at its best – Israel as we would have liked to see it – the Israel we love.” The items that Ramon brought into the shuttle instilled pride in...

February 7th, 2003 Col. Ilan Ramon's Last Article Over the past three years Col. Ilan Ramon sent 19 articles to the Israeli Air Force's newspaper in which he described his experiences and training in preparation for his mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia. His articles were published under the heading: "From the Diary of an Astronaut". The following is a translation of Col. Ramon's last article, published in December 2002. "Hello everybody. This past week the space shuttle "Endeavor" blasted off into space, and now here we are again, 'Prime Crew', that is to say, we are the crew that...