ISTANBUL-The Turkish military shot down a jet fighter along the Syrian border on Tuesday after the plane violated Turkey’s airspace and ignored warnings to return, according to a Turkish government official.
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Turkish officials released what they said was the radar image of the path the Russian plane took, showing it flying across a stretch of Turkish territory in Turkey’s southern-most tip, in the region of Yayladag, in Hatay province.
“A Russian Su-24 located at the altitude of 6,000 meters in Syrian airspace crashed allegedly because of gunfire from the ground”, Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed Defense Ministry official as saying.
It was not clear to which country the plane belonged, said the sources. The aircraft was warned 10 times in five minutes, the military said.
A spokesman for the rebel group that captured a Russian pilot whose plane was shot down over northwestern Syria says he was dead upon landing. “A Russian Su-24 plane was downed under the rules of engagement because it violated the Turkish airspace despite the warnings”, the Turkish presidency said.
Both pilots managed to eject and the warplane crashed on the territory of Syria.
The pilots of the targeted warplane parachuted before the plane crash near the borders, the TV said. The fighter jet exploded in the air and the fireball fell on a mountain on the Syrian side of the border, television pictures showed.
“For the entire duration of the flight, the aircraft was exclusively over Syrian territory”.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has been briefed by the General Staff and ordered the Turkish Foreign Ministry to contact North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the United Nations and relevant countries about the downed plane.
Doğan news agency footage showed what appeared to be Russian military helicopters searching for the pilots.
The fate of the second pilot was not immediately known.
Turkey scrambled jets and summoned the Russian ambassador in protest after a Russian fighter jet entered Turkey’s airspace on October 3.
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But Moscow insists the Su-24 jet did not violate the Turkish airspace. It comes a day before Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was expected to pay a visit to Turkey on Wednesday to discuss Syria, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as well as Cyprus.
