The World - News from March 4, 1988

Four Libyan air force pilots who landed their planes in Egypt earlier in the week have flown home, Egypt’s Middle East News Agency said. The agency quoted the Libyan news service JANA as saying that the four Soviet-made MIG-23 fighters had landed at a base in the Western Desert because they were running out of fuel--and not, as some had speculated, because the pilots were defecting. In the absence of a statement from the Cairo government, the agency report apparently amounted to Egyptian confirmation that the planes and pilots had returned to Libya. The neighboring countries, bitter rivals, have no diplomatic relations. Five Libyan crew members who defected aboard three aircraft last year were given political asylum in Egypt.