Death in Distant Places

SWISSAIR Flight 330 was 15 minutes out of Zurich's Kloten Airport en route to Tel Aviv last week when the Zurich tower logged the kind of report that airmen dread. "We are on fire!" called Swissair's pilot. Before he could obey Zurich's emergency instructions, the jet exploded in midair, spraying metal and bodies on an Alpine forest below. All 47 people aboard perished.

The explosion might have resulted from a malfunction, but investigators doubted it; the blast occurred toward the tail section, probably in the baggage or mail compartment. Only three hours earlier, an Austrian Airlines plane bound from Frankfurt to Vienna (where some of its mail was to be transferred to another AUA flight to Tel Aviv) had been buffeted by a similar explosion that tore a hole in its fuselage. Luckily, the Austrian's pilot was able to land safely at Frankfurt, where experts traced the explosion to a mailbag labeled for Israel. In Amman, an obscure Arab terrorist organization called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command promptly bragged that it had blown up the Swiss plane because Israeli officials-were aboard.

Loyal Bedouins. Whether the commando group was responsible or not, its claim was certain to anger both Switzerland and Austria--whose aircraft were involved--and other neutral nations, which now are presumably no longer immune to commando attacks on their Israel-bound airliners. The action was also certain to heighten passions in the troubled Middle East. Tel Aviv, sensitive to attacks on its communication lines, was likely to react violently to the sabotage of airliners enroute to Israel.

At the same time, an equally menacing situation was developing in Jordan, where King Hussein gathered loyal Bedouin chieftains and hinted at a showdown with guerrilla organizations that have defied his government. Alarmed by the growing guerrilla strength across the Jordan River, Information Minister Israel Galili warned that "if foreign forces eliminate King Hussein," Israel might order military action in Jordan.

Radar Bombsight. Actually, the week began with the Israelis demonstrating restraint. Apparently appalled by the death of 80 Egyptian civilians in the earlier bombing of a factory at Abu Zabal (TIME, Feb. 23), Israel collared its pilots. When Israeli jets took to the air, they were restricted to unmistakable military targets, bombing SA-2 missile sites at Dahshur and Helwan in the Cairo perimeter and Egyptian installations along the Suez Canal. President Gamal Abdel Nasser also claimed that he was practicing moderation. When

Egyptian pilots demanded to revenge Abu Zabal, Nasser revealed, he had refused on the ground that he did not "take decisions under the influence of emotion." Nonetheless, low-flying Egyptian jets--which do not have the range to hit cities in Israel and return to base --bombed Israeli positions along the canal.

At week's end, the Israelis finally explained the disastrous Abu Zabal bombing as "an incredible coincidence." The pilot was approaching the target at high speed and evading antiaircraft fire when his radar bombsight failed. While seeking his target visually, he saw reference points--an Arab village, long, low buildings, sand dunes and a road intersection --that looked exactly like those he had been told to look for as he approached a military base at Khanka. Actually, they were identical to features in Abu Zabal, two miles away from the intended target.

-That intelligence was faulty. The passenger list included several prominent Israeli citizens, but no officials.

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