Israeli Air Force Nearly Shot Down Tony Blair

I think this qualifies as the most bizarre story of the day:

Tony Blair came within moments of being killed when two Israeli fighter aircraft threatened to shoot down a private jet taking him to a Middle East conference in the belief that it might have been staging a terrorist attack.

The warplanes were scrambled to intercept after the jet pilot failed to contact air traffic control. Mr Blair, the international community’s envoy to the Middle East, was flying from the World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to attend a major conference on private investment in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.

Air traffic controllers spotted a suspicious aircraft heading into Israeli airspace from the Sinai peninsula on Monday and made several attempts to establish contact. When the pilot failed to respond to their urgent requests, the Israelis scrambled two fighters to intercept what they feared could have been a terrorist attacker.

Initial investigations into the events indicated a technical malfunction was to blame for the breakdown in communication, the Israeli newspaper Maariv said, adding that new systems had been set up in recent months to identify suspicious aircraft. Israeli fighters have been scrambled on several occasions to intercept potential attackers.

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(cross posted at Liberal Avenger) (via appletree)