On October 16, 1986, Ron Arad was captured by the Shia militia “Amal”, after he was forced to abandon his Phantom plane in the area of the city of Sidon in Lebanon. Very little is known about his fate since then and he is still classified as a prisoner. Arad was a navigator in the Israeli Air Force and a student at the Technion who had finished his first year of study in the Faculty of Chemical Engineering when he was called up for reserve service.