Ben-Zion Zohar

Ben-Zion Zohar was born in 1937 in Bat Shlomo

Zohar was born Ben-Zion Simkin in 1937 in the moshava of Bat Shlomo. He wanted to fly from childhood and took up gliding as a teenager. He studied at the agricultural high school in Pardes Hanna.

He enlisted in the Nahal but moved to the Air Force and finished flight school in 1958. In 1961 he and his navigator made a crash landing in a damaged Meteor, and the plane was retired. He later flew the Vautour in 110 Squadron and left regular service in 1966 to become a crop-dusting pilot for the Marom company.

Called up for reserve duty in May 1967, he flew Vautour bombing missions against Egyptian airfields during Operation Moked. On the first day of the war he engaged Egyptian MiG-21 fighters while the other planes bombed Abu Suweir. On the second day, over the H-3 airfield in Iraq, he shot down a Jordanian Hunter, the only known air kill by a Vautour.

After the war he returned to regular service for a time and flew the Skyhawk, then went back to crop dusting while flying in the reserves. In 1983, as a reserve major, he ejected safely from a Kfir whose engine failed after takeoff. He was killed on July 1, 1997, when his Pawnee crop-dusting plane crashed.