1997 IDF Helicopter disaster claims its 74th victim

Radai Phils, among the first paramedics to reach the crash site, suffered acute PTSD from the experience and took his own life as a result.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Radai Phils, one of the first soldiers to reach the scene of the crash of two IDF helicopters that killed 73 soldiers in 1997, took his own life last week after battling Post-Traumatic Stress for the past 22 years. He was 42.

The accident, in which two Sikorsky CH 53 helicopters crashed over Kibbutz Shaar Yashuv in northern Israel on February 4, 1997, had a profound impact on Israeli society and is cited as one of the reasons Israel withdrew from its southern Lebanon security zone.

A childhood friend, Shaked Shroit from Kibbutz Ga’ash told the Ynet news site that family members of the young soldiers who died when the helicopters collided on their way to Lebanon came to comfort the family.

They “definitely” considered him another victim of the crash, she said.

Phils was a young combat medic and among the first to arrive to the scene only to discover there were no survivors. The horrific experience that day stayed with him.

Shroit said Phils battled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – and struggled with the Army to acknowledge his disability.

“For 22 years he tried to fight [PTSD] and live like everyone else,” she said, adding that Phils was “an amazing man” who helped everyone and could “enter your heart in seconds.”

He talked to his close friends about what he experienced, she said, but “he entered an inferno” at the site, she said, “and really never got out of it.” He was alive, she said sadly, but “every night he smelled the odors, saw the sights, and re-experienced what it was like to reach the site.”

The Israeli Army did not even recognize him as a disabled vet until a few years ago to give him the financial aid he deserved, she says, noting that he had been sent only 700 shekels per month and his parents had to support him.

“A person who can barely get out of bed and function was forced to go and prove,” that something was wrong with him, she said. “That’s a horrible position to be in.”

“His internal battles were enough. All the battles with the Army and to get recognition were terribly exhausting, for him, for his family, for everyone around him.”

Phils didn’t respond to pills or psychological treatment. He was always fighting “demons in his head,” she said, “and the system did not give him the help that we’d expect for boys who go out to war or try to save others.”

She made a plea to the Army and the government to recognize the phenomenon of PTSD and to treat its victims “with kid gloves, because the noise [about it] is often heard, but the act itself – rather less.”

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