WarSclerotic

Syria apologizes for shooting down Turkish plane – Erdogan — RT.

Damascus has apologized for shooting down a military plane, which went off Turkish radars earlier in the day, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said.

The plane was taken down by Syrian forces, an official Turkish source confirmed to Hurriyet daily.

The plane crashed into Syrian territorial waters earlier today, according to reports. A missile shattered it to pieces after which the missile plunged into the Mediterranean Sea. The two pilots were later saved off the shore of Hatay, a south eastern province bordering Syria.

Syrian vessels have joined a search operation, which was launched immediately after the Turkish military lost radar and radio contact with the jet. The planes took off from Erhac Airport in the eastern province of Malatya at 10 a.m. local time.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Syrian defense forces had been shooting at two foreign planes.

“Witnesses spotted two jets flying in from Turkish territory. One of the planes went down in Syria’s territorial waters, while the other one made off,” says Ihab Sultan, a local correspondent in Syria, told RT.

A similar incident happened on Thursday when a Syrian pilot and his fighter jet defected to Jordan. The plane made an emergency landing just across the border, and the pilot appealed for political asylum.

This entry was posted on June 22, 2012 at 5:52 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.