helicopters passed over my house without their lights on. Then there was a flash. One fell straight away and the other wavered for half a kilometre... then it also exploded." One of the helicopters crashed in a fireball directly onto She'ar Yashuv, setting an empty bungalow on fire, while the other crashed into the cemetery of kibbutz Dafna a few hundred yards away. Fires, fueled by jet fuel from the helicopters, broke out on the ground, and munitions that had been stored aboard the helicopters cooked off and set off a series of explosions. Some witnesses claimed they could hear faint cries coming from the wreckage, but they could not get close to them because of the explosions, and that the cries ceased after the explosions. All 73 soldiers on the helicopters were killed, but there were no casualties on the ground. One witness claimed to have seen a soldier thrown from a helicopter who initially still had a pulse but died soon after. Following the crash, soldiers, firefighters, and rescue crews raced to the scene. Magen David Adom rushed twenty ambulances and two mobile intensive care units to the scene. However, it soon became clear there were no survivors. Fearing that additional ammunition could explode, the IDF cordoned off all communities in the area, declaring them closed military zones, shut down all local roads, and sent in bomb squads to clear the area of explosives. This created massive traffic jams and temporarily prevented hundreds of people from reaching their homes. Rescue crews recovered bodies and pieces of equipment from the scene, and some of the dead were found still strapped into their seats. The bodies were taken to a makeshift morgue set up on a nearby military base for identification. The IDF censored news of the crash for more than two hours to enable the families of the victims to be informed, but swift identification proved impossible. All of the bodies had been recovered by the morning of February 5. Aftermath The crash was the deadliest air disaster in Israeli history. A wave of national mourning swept Israel. According to Joshua L. Gleis, "In a close-knit country where nearly everyone joins the military, a huge portion of the nation's population knew at least one of the soldiers killed in the crash." February 6 was declared an official day of mourning. Flags were flown at half-mast, restaurants and cinemas closed,