JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The 20-year-old pilot son of Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut who died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster of 2003, was killed Sunday when his fighter plane crashed during training, the Israeli military said.
Assaf Ramon graduated from air force flying school three months ago amid a flurry of local media interest in the career of the eldest son of the first -- and only -- Israeli in space. Broadcasters interrupted programs Sunday to air the news.
"An Israeli Tragedy" ran the strapline on one TV station, which like others carried extensive live coverage on the story.
The single-seat F-16 piloted by the younger Ramon went down near the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
"This afternoon, Lieutenant Assaf Ramon, an Israel Air Force pilot was killed in an F-16A plane crash ... in the southern Hebron hills," the Israeli military statement said.
It added Ramon was on a routine training flight and that it had suspended all further such training in the U.S.-built jet pending an investigation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement expressing national grief at Ramon's death.
"Few are the moments when private pain pierces the national heart with such force. Today the entire nation is wrapped in unending grief for the death of Assaf, who fell from the heavens like his father, Ilan."
The space shuttle Columbia broke apart about 12 miles (20 km) over Texas as it headed for landing on February 1, 2003.
Seven astronauts -- six Americans and Ilan Ramon, an F-16 pilot who took part in Israel's 1981 bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor -- died because of damage to the spacecraft's heat shield, caused during its launch two weeks earlier.
(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Louise Ireland)
