Avraham Lanir Avraham " Avi " Lanir ( January 25 , 1940 – October 1973 ) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Israel Air Force . He was the highest ranking Israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands . He was tortured to death by his Syrian captors . Biography . Avraham Lankin ( later Lanir ) was born in 1940 in Herzliya . His parents Yaacov and Malka were active members in the British Mandate era militant group Etzel . His father went on to become a senior member of the Shin Bet . His uncle , Eliyahu Lankin , was the commander of the weapons ship " Altelena " . Lanir studied at several schools , with the family following his father ' s employment relocations throughout Israel . In 1954 , the family moved to Washington , D . C . in the framework of Lanir ’ s fathers work in the service of the state of Israel . When Avi Lanir was 17 , he returned to Israel with his family and for the year which remained before his enlistment he studied electronics at the Israeli Air Force ’ s technical academy . In August 1962 , Lanir married Michal Barzilai . The couple had two children , Noam and Nurit . Air force career . Lanir enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 1959 , training to become a fighter pilot . He flew the Dassault Mirage III with 117 Squadron and on April 6 , 1967 , scored his first aerial kill in a major skirmish along the Syrian border which ended with the downing of six Syrian jets . Lanir , flying Mirage 60 , downed a SAF MiG - 21 with cannon fire after closing in to a distance of 200 meters . The MiG exploded and Lanir flew right through the fireball , covering his aircraft with soot . Initially blinded , enough soot was eventually blown off his canopy to afford Lanir a safe landing at Ramat David . The scorched aircraft earned the nickname " Black Mirage " , and Lanir flew it once again during Operation Focus on June 5 , 1967 , when he participated in a strike against the Egyptian air base at Fayid . The aircraft was lost 2 days later over Iraq . After the Six Day War Lanir converted to the Dassault Super Mystere which he flew as the senior deputy commander of 105 Squadron during the War of Attrition . In 1965 Lanir was sent to study electrical engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology , from which he graduated in 1969 . He was thereafter appointed to test pilot the " Technolog , " the prototype that preceded the IAI Kfir . In 1971 , Lanir was assigned command of 101 Squadron , operating the Dassault Mirage out of Hazor . He scored his second aerial kill on November 9 , 1972 , downing a Syrian MiG - 21 while flying Mirage 72 . On October 12 , 1973 , a week after the Yom Kippur War began , Lanir scored his third and last aerial kill , downing a Syrian MiG - 17 in the vicinity of Kuneitra while flying Mirage 58 . Capture and death . On October 13 , 1973 , Lanir was scrambled for a reconnaissance mission deep in Syrian territory . Lanir was not aware of the location of the mobile missile batteries that the Syrians had placed overnight , possibly due to not attending the morning squadron briefing . During his return to Israel , Lanir was caught in a missile ambush and his Mirage was hit in the rear , forcing him to eject . The wind carried the parachuting pilot back over the border into Syrian territory and he landed in the area of Mazra ' at Beit Jinn . Israeli Armor Corps soldiers witnessed him land and attempted to rescue him , but he was captured by a Syrian jeep patrol that reached him first . Foreign press reports claimed that Lanir had information on Israel ' s nuclear program . According to Yuval Neeman , then Prime Minister Golda Meir delivered a message to Henry Kissinger stating that the Israeli government would be willing to relinquish the Hermon peak in return for the 28 Israeli pilots , including Lanir , held captive by the Syrians . However , Lanir was tortured to death by his interrogators . On June 6 , 1974 , the Syrians returned Lanir ' s body . Former Israel Air Force Commander Mordechai Hod noted that Lanir had information that would have placed the existence of Israel at risk had he revealed it to the Syrians .