A plane crash claimed the lives of Israeli tech investors Liron and Naomi Petrushka on Saturday, March 30, 2024, leaving behind three sons.
Liron, 57, from Ramat Gan, Israel, was a professional soccer player for Hapoel Ramat Gan Givatayim before moving to the U.S. Naomi, 58, of Illinois, was an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, and headed Petrushka Investments. They were both well-known to the Israeli community in Silicon Valley, where they lived for over 20 years.
Their investments included Check, later sold to American financial giant Intuit in 2014 for about $360 million, and fintech unicorn Next Insurance, founded by the entrepreneurs behind Check. The Petrushkas also invested in venture capital firm UpWest, which invests in Israeli-led startups in the United States and Israel.
Details emerging from the aftermath of the crash show the Petrushkas, aboard a single-engine TBM aircraft registered as N960LP, were approaching Truckee Tahoe Airport for landing around 6:38 p.m. local time in a moderate snowstorm. However, their flight turned tragic as the plane executed a go-around/missed approach for runway 20, initiating a series of maneuvers that culminated in disaster.
Craig Bower told KCRA that it had been snowing all day Saturday.
“We thought for sure it was flying using an instrument,” Craig Bower said. “There was no visibility at all.”
Eyewitness accounts and preliminary findings from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) offer glimpses into the moments preceding the crash some 3,200 feet north of the runway. The aircraft, owned by Avram Enterprises, LLC, experienced a sudden descent, hurtling toward snow-covered terrain near Glenshire Dr. and Olympic Blvd.
“I heard this airplane but very close right over the house and I was like, ‘ Gosh that sounds awfully close,’” Susan Bower Told KCRA.
Bower said when she heard the plane, she knew something was wrong.
“Seconds later, I could hear a big thud,” she added. “I knew it went down.”
However, the seven-page NTSB, while heavy on data, along with who, where, and when, does not conclude with what caused the fatal crash or why the crash happened in the first place.
More than a month later, revelations from an alleged source within the U.S. State Department have added intrigue to the narrative. Speculation regarding the potential involvement of the Petrushka as assets for Israeli intelligence comes from their prominence in the tech investment scene, as the Petrushkas were privy to information regarding emerging technologies, market trends, and potential business opportunities.
“There is more to the crash than meets the eye,” the source stated, without offering more information.
As influential figures within the Israeli expatriate community in California, the Petrushkas could have served as unofficial diplomatic conduits, fostering relationships with key individuals in the tech industry, academia, and government. Their interactions and access to high-profile circles may have provided Israeli intelligence with valuable insights and networking opportunities. Furthermore, through their investments and business ventures, the Petrushkas wielded considerable financial influence within various sectors.
Given the overlap between civilian technology and military applications, Israeli intelligence appears to have been interested in monitoring or influencing developments in specific technological fields with potential dual-use capabilities. The Petrushkas’ ventures related to cybersecurity, fintech, and other advanced manufacturing could have attracted the attention of intelligence agencies seeking to safeguard Israel’s security interests.
Israeli intelligence could have utilized their financial resources and connections to support covert operations, fund intelligence-gathering activities, facilitate diplomatic initiatives, or leverage their connections and insights to gather intelligence on technological advancements relevant to national security or economic interests.
The same State Department source hinted that the plane crash was not an accident but instead a deliberate act.
If the Petrushkas were indeed involved in activities perceived as threatening to certain parties, whether in business, politics, or intelligence, they might have been targets. A deliberate plane crash engineered to appear as an accident could serve as a method of assassination, allowing the perpetrators to avoid detection and accountability.
If suspected of being assets for Israeli intelligence, individuals or entities opposed to Israeli interests could have orchestrated the crash to disrupt ongoing intelligence operations or to send a message of deterrence. It could be part of a broader strategy to undermine Israeli influence or to eliminate perceived threats to rival interests.
With tech investments and entrepreneurship being competitive, rivalries can sometimes escalate to extreme measures. It’s conceivable that the crash could have been orchestrated by business rivals, disgruntled associates, or individuals with personal grievances against the Petrushkas, seeking to eliminate them for reasons unrelated to their potential ties to intelligence.
Approximately five months after the October 7 attacks, around 135,000 Israelis remained displaced. Hotels in Ramat Gan, where Liron had lived, serve as shelters for evacuees unable to return to their homes in southern Israel. The city took on the responsibility of providing emergency social services to evacuees.
On Saturday, May 15, a 56-year-old man in Ramat Gan was killed by shrapnel when rockets struck his home. Six other Israelis received injuries in the rocket attacks. So far, 600 Israelis have been injured Israelis since the beginning of the attacks.
The recent attack on civilians living in Ramat Gan is nothing new.
At about 8:45 a.m. on Monday, July 24, 1995, a Hamas suicide ripped through the middle of the blue-and-white No. 20 municipal bus, shredding some bodies into unrecognizable fragments near the Israel Diamond Exchange. Six Israelis died while wounding 33 as a metal pipe containing 33 pounds of explosives and nails manually detonated.
At around 9 a.m., the Associated Press office in East Jerusalem received a call claiming responsibility for the attack. The caller bragged that a member of Hamas from the Yahya Ayyash group in the West Bank was behind the attack.
That night, authorities had identified five of those killed as Nehama Leibowitz, 61; Moshe Shkedi, 75; Zahava Oren, 60; Rahel Tamari, 65; and Zvia Hacohen, 62, all from Tel Aviv or nearby. Police spokesman Eric Bar-Chen said the remaining body “almost certainly” was that of the bomber.
A similar attack in the Ramat Gan neighborhood of Tel Aviv occurred on Wednesday, October 19, 1994, when a Hamas bomber killed himself and 22 other people on busy Dizengoff Street, the city’s main commercial thoroughfare.
It is crucial to emphasize that the following scenarios are hypothetical and treated as such. Attributing the plane crash to anything other than an accident is speculative, given the absence of credible evidence or confirmation from a reliable source other than an alleged and unnamed State Department official.
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