[drycleden]

A Canadian peacekeeper and eight French comrades died Sunday when a small Canadian-built Twin Otter aircraft operated by the French air force exploded in flames after it crashed while trying to make an emergency landing on a highway that cuts through rugged mountainous terrain in the Sinai Peninsula.

Cpl Benoit Chevalier, an air traffic controller from CFB Bagotville in Quebec's Saguenay region, was on a training mission between two airfields at the northern and southern ends of the peninsula that are used by the Multinational Force and Observers Mission Sinai. The little known unit, which was set up by Egypt and Israel and is not part of the formal UN peacekeeping establishment, has about 1,800 troops drawn from 11 countries. It has patrolled the 215 kilometre border between Egypt and Israel since shortly after the Camp David accords were signed in 1978.

Eyewitnesses said that the twin engine DeHavilland aircraft, which was designed to make difficult short takeoffs and landings, struck a truck while trying to set down on a highway.

"I heard a loud explosion and saw fire," Abdel Qader Salman told Reuters. "I saw remains on a wide area. No one was alive."

While everyone aboard the airplane died and the truck that it hit was destroyed by fire, its driver escaped before it was engulfed in flames.

The Twin Otter’s pilot had radioed air traffic controllers in Cairo to report that he was having problems with one of the aircraft’s engines moments before the crash, according to Egypt’s MENA news agency. A spokesman for the multinational force said there was no reason to suspect anything other than a mechanical failure.

"Cpl Chevalier was a highly appreciated and skilled member of the twenty eight Canadian Forces personnel team assigned to the MFO", Col. Peter Abbott, the senior Canadian with what Canada calls Operation CALUMET, said in a statement released in Ottawa.

"He was playing a key role in maintaining the cohesiveness of the Canadian contingent and his comrades regarded him as an extremely personable, thoughtful and professional airman. I offer my deepest condolences to his family, friends and colleagues mourning his loss."

Canada has 28 soldiers deployed in the Sinai. Aside from Afghanistan, the Sinai mission has been Canada’s largest overseas military commitment since nearly 200 Canadian UN peacekeepers withdrew from the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria 14 months ago. There are 33 Canadian peacekeepers in Sudan, but they are split between two different UN missions.

The desert region between Egypt and Israel, which is sparsely populated by Bedouin nomads and is well known for its ferociously hot climate, has frequently been a military flashpoint. An army led by Israel's Moshe Dayan defeated an Egyptian army there in 1956. Another Israeli army occupied the Sinai after defeating Egyptian troops during the 1967 Six Day War.

There has been no military action in the Sinai since it reverted to Egyptian control in 1979. But it has been a known transit point for suicide bombers trying to enter Israel on foot including a Palestinian who attacked the Israeli resort of Eilat earlier this year, killing himself and two Israelis.

More than 100 Egyptians and foreign tourists have also been killed in recent years during terrorist attacks on Egyptian resorts on the peninsula.

According to Israeli media reports, the frontier, which in most places is forbidding mountains, featureless sand dunes or hardscrabble limestone crisscrossed by occasional camel paths, has also been used by organized criminal gangs to bring prostitutes into Israel from eastern Europe.

[M_Marked]

I wish there was as much recognition of fallen US soldiers.