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Atef Sadat

Egyptian pilot; killed in action during the October War of 1973

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ12222290
Source-derived summary

Mohamed Atef Anwar Sadat (Arabic: محمد عاطف أنور السادات; 13 March 1948 – 6 October 1973) was an Egyptian fighter pilot and war hero. In the first hour of the Yom Kippur War, he was killed in action while conducting an aerial raid on an airport in the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula. He was the younger half-brother of the then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated on the same day eight years later.

Early life and career

Atef Sadat was born on 13 March 1948 in the village of Mit Abu El Kom, Tala District, in Monufia Governorate. He graduated from the Egyptian Air Academy in 1966, and spent two years in the Soviet Union, attending a training program on jet fighters and then fighter bombers (the Sukhoi Su-7).

Yom Kippur War

On 5 October 1973, a state of readiness was launched at Bilbeis Airport, and every pilot ran a fighter inside the fortified aircraft complex, and the planes were armed with bombs and ready, but the mission was cancelled as this was a training exercise on assembling pilots.

During the First Egyptian Air Strike, Atef Sadat was part of Sukhoi Su-7 formation that attacked the Israeli Meliz airfield. In the course of the attack, Atef's plane was shot down and he was killed.

Reports of his death

To avoid distracting her husband, Jehan Sadat waited until the eighth day of the war before breaking the news of his brother's death to him. He was first reported dead on 5 January 1974 by Egyptian newspapers.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Atef Sadat” as egyptian pilot; killed in action during the October War of 1973. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1948, 1973, 1966, 1974—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1948-03-13. The account is most persuasive where Atef, Sadat and Egyptian can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as egyptian pilot; killed in action during the October War of 1973. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12222290. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1973, 1966 and 1974.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Atef Sadat”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Atef Sadat primary sources, Atef Sadat archive and Atef research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Atef Sadat”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Atef Sadat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.