Birnbaum

On Monday afternoon, September 16, 1996, an IAF Dophin helicopter left the Ramat David base, flown by Lieutenant Colonel Benzion Bachar, for rescue at sea practice maneuvers.
Contact with the helicopter was lost at 8:30 that night, when it was opposite the Nahariya coast.
Search efforts were initiated after losing contact.
The copilot, Cpt. Shahak Sela, is killed.
Around midnight, Captain Shachak Sela’s body was found, along with fragments of the helicopter, which had apparently broken up on contact with the water.
Lt. Col. Benzion Bachar, the pilot, and Navy officer Lt. Eran Garbiyah, were initially pronounced missing. IAF planes and helicopters participated in the search operation and dropped lighting flairs.
The Israeli Navy located the acoustic beacon of the Dolphin helicopter, but it is on the sea floor at a 650-meter depth, and the navy did not have the equipment to recover it.
The working assumption was that the beacon was still attached to the helicopter, which rested on the sea floor some 12 nautical miles east of Nahariya.
Lt. Col. Bachar's body was eventually found, but Lt. Garbiyah was still declared missing.