In the first two days of the Yom Kippur war, the IAF lost 10 percent of its A-4Es to state-of-the art SAMs and AAA provided by the Soviets. One IAF pilot believed he could avoid the Syrian air defenses by flying low through a river canyon along the Syria-Jordan border. He was one of only two A-4E pilots to hit his assigned target on Day 2 of the war.