The mother of Capt. Ron Birman, the sole survivor of Monday night’s IDF helicopter crash off the coast of Haifa, spoke to Israeli radio on Wednesday, saying she and her husband are “thankful for the miracle that happened to us.”

The helicopter’s two pilots, Maj. Chen Fogel, aged 27, and Lt. Col. Erez Sachyani, a 38-year-old married father of three, were killed in the crash. Initial reports have indicated that a fire in one of the helicopter’s engines may have caused the accident.

Israel’s Walla news reported that Marina Birman recounted that the Birman family was initially informed of the incident by Ron’s girlfriend and “we understood that he was in the heart of the sea, two kilometers from the shore, after he tried to save his friends. That’s how we understood that he survived.”

Her son, she said, “tried after [the crash] to extract his friends, the pilots. He was certain they survived. He tried to extract them several times; but in the end, he understood that it wasn’t going to happen.”... Read More: Algemeiner