Tamar Ariel ( he, תמר אריאל; September 12, 1989 – October 14, 2014) was an
Israeli Air Force
The Israeli Air Force (IAF; he, זְרוֹעַ הָאֲוִיר וְהֶחָלָל, Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal, tl, "Air and Space Arm", commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial warfare branch of the Israel Defense ...
navigator, Israel's first female
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
pilot.
She died in a
Himalayan blizzard in 2014, aged 25.
[
]
Biography
Tamar Ariel was from Masu'ot Yitzhak
Masu'ot Yitzhak ( he, מְשּׂוּאוֹת יִצְחָק, ''lit.'' Yitzhak's Beacons) is a moshav shitufi in southern Israel. Located near Ashkelon, it falls under the jurisdiction of Shafir Regional Council. The original kibbutz in Gush Et ...
, a cooperative farming community. Her father was born on the Moshav
A moshav ( he, מוֹשָׁב, plural ', lit. ''settlement, village'') is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 an ...
and her mother immigrated from Puerto Rico. Tamar was the third of six children.[
Ariel graduated the ]Israel Air Force
The Israeli Air Force (IAF; he, זְרוֹעַ הָאֲוִיר וְהֶחָלָל, Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal, tl, "Air and Space Arm", commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial warfare branch of the Israel Defense ...
(IAF) flight school in December 2012. During her training she was forced to eject from her Beechcraft T-6 Texan II
The Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is a single-engine turboprop aircraft built by the Raytheon Aircraft Company (Textron Aviation since 2014). A trainer aircraft based on the Pilatus PC-9, the T-6 has replaced the United States Air Force's Cessna T ...
causing her to rocket skyward, breaking a vertebra in her back. Ariel spent months in an elastic body cast then went on to complete her training. After graduation, she flew the F-16D. During Operation Protective Edge
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge ( he, מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, translit=Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, ),
was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territories, Pale ...
, according to one of her commanders, she flew the most combat missions in her squadron.[
Ariel died, aged 25, in a snow storm that hit the high mountain passes on a vacation to the ]Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
in 2014.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ariel, Tamar
1989 births
2014 deaths
Israeli people of Argentine-Jewish descent
Israeli Air Force personnel
Israeli women aviators
Deaths in avalanches