Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoğlu has begun putting the Turkish Government’s position forward thıs morning.
The Turkish Government's position is that:
The F4 was on a mission to test Turkey’s radar systems.
It was flying alone.
It was 13 miles off the coast of Syria when it was hit by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile.
Turkish jets (possibly this F4 - the sentence is not clear on this) had entered Syrian airspace earlier without Syrian reaction.
The Syrians did not broadcast any warning.
The F4 crashed into the sea 8 miles off the Syrian coast.
The F4 wouldn’t have had enough fuel to fly the route described in the Syrian’s statements.
The matter will be submitted to the UN/ and Turkey is 100% in the right.
The pilots are still missing. Search and resue efforts in cooperation with Syria are continuing.
The F4's wreckage is in waters 1,300 m deep.
Update: The Turkish Government has stated that the F4 was flying southward at 2000 feet along the Turkish coast towards Syria - as eyewitnesses had reported - and had entered Syrian airspace and flown in Syrian airspace for at least 5 minutes before it was shot down, but that the F4 was in international airspace when it was hit. It was also stated that shortly before the aircraft was hit it began flying irratically.
Given the high speeds involved and the very short distances involved I wonder if a missile could have been fired at the F4 while it was in Syrian airspace.
Some parts of the timeline in the Turkish statements don't add up to me.
My concerns are:
This doesn’t match the statements made by people, who live on or just north of the Turkish-Syrian border, in interviews on Turkish television, some on the government run TRT, that:
Two Turkish Air Force F4s flew south at a low altitude (about 1,000 m) along the Mediterranean coast towards Syria. A short time later (2 or 3 minutes) booms and explosions were heard, and 2 or 3 minutes later one F4 was seen flying north along the same route.
If the F4 had enough fuel to fly around for X amount of time testing the Turkish radar system, wouldn’t it have had enough fuel to fly the route described in Syrian statements in the same amount of time?
Could someone who knows about combat aircraft please provide information about the following points which are bothering me?
The possibility that an F4 flying at a low altitude hit by anti-aircraft fire near the Syrian coast could fly about 7 or so miles away from the coast before going down.
The possibility that an F4 flying at an unknown altitude 13 miles from the Syrian coast hit by an anti-aircraft missile could fly 5 miles towards the Syrian coast before going down.
How would an F4 pilot react to an anti-aircraft missile fired at it from the coast 13 miles away? Would it fly towards the Syrian coast as one sentence in FM Davutoğlu’s statements seems to imply?
I will be out of Antalya this afternoon to get a little fresh air out in the countryside so I won’t be able to respond or update with any new information from Turkey until this evening Turkish time.
Public reaction is still very calm. I have not seen or heard of any public uproar towards Syria.
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Previous posts about this:
- Rumors Abound in Turkey after Air Force F4 Lost off Syrian Coast
- Turkish Air Force F4 Shot Down by Syria - Confirmed
- Turkish Air Force F4 Downed by Syria - Today’s Developments