The Turkish Air Force suspends flights over Syria amid crisis with Russia over Su-24 downing

Nov 27 2015 - 90 Comments
By David Cenciotti

The Turkish Air Force is no longer supporting the air war on ISIS.

According to  Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, the Turkish Air Force has suspended the missions over Syria of its aircraft supporting the international air campaign against ISIS.

This is the effect of the unprecedented diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Moscow sparked by the downing of the Russian Su-24 Fencer bomber by a TuAF F-16 after the alleged and controversial violation of the Turkish airspace on Nov. 24.

According to the Turkish authorities, the Su-24 violated Ankara’s airspace (for 17 seconds) and did not respond to 10 warnings in 5 minutes, radioed by a TuAF GCI (Ground Controlled Intercept) station while the aircraft, along with another one of the same type approached the border. Russian authorities deny this report and claim no warning was issued by the Turkish and no violation occurred at all.

Following the incident, the TuAF said that the warnings, on a dedicated mutually agreed radio channel and the international Guard (emergency) channel (243.0/121.5 MHz), were not answered by the Russian plane that continued to fly towards the Turkish airspace, leading the Turkish Air Force to believe the intruding aircraft was not Russian but Syrian.

One of the Su-24 pilots was killed by fire from the ground after successfully ejecting from the plane in flames whereas the second pilot was rescued in a 12-hour-long operation

Actually, according to the Turkish media outlet, the decision was mutual and aimed at preventing the repetition of the incident along the border: on one side, TuAF jets will no longer take part in the air war on Islamic State, on the other one, the Russians will halt their raids near the Syria-Turkey border.

In the meanwhile, Moscow has deployed the S-400 air defense system at Latakia air base as the following video shows.

 

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  • E1-Kabong

    Cite your sources.

  • su34

    He’s just a troll (9927 comments since May 23 2015), a real “pro” parroting brainlessly the same thing time, and again.
    With the exception of (extremely) few comments, that would deserve a cursory glance, the rest are short catchphrases repeated ad nauseam.

  • disqus_STXkrV9NGc

    Again, this boils down to what your definition of a terrorist is. I don’t recall hearing anything about public beheadings by FSA troops, or bombings of marketplaces. Nor do I recall the FSA (or al Nusra for that matter) ever calling for extermination of infidels at home and abroad.

    Conversely, I do read quite often about barrel bombs being dropped from high altitude on disobedient cities.

    And of I get this right, you see opposition troops and ISIS as an equal threat to the world, yes?

    • rats123

      Shooting a parachuting pilot is not a terrorist act?

      • su34

        It’s actually a war crime. But only when yank pilots are shot you must be upset. The not so exceptional, and indispensable ones don’t deserve any attention.

  • su34

    He’s just a troll (9927 comments since May 23 2015), a real “pro” parroting brainlessly the same thing time, and again.
    With the exception of (extremely) few comments, that would deserve a cursory glance, the rest are short catchphrases repeated ad nauseam.

  • su34

    You claimed you _never_ heard about _any_ case. You were offered 4
    examples, with many others to be found, as a kind reminder. Don’t play
    dumb(er), if you’re really interested, you can find them yourself.

    • disqus_STXkrV9NGc

      I’m not “playing dumber”. I said that in a rhetoric tone.

      My point (and still stood at the time of my last reply) is that opposition rebels are not the ones particularly known for crimes against humanity and crimes of war. There wasn’t a single war ever in the history of anything where crimes were not committed by both sides. But one side tends to be the “bigger of two evils”.

      This is a four year civil war with nearly a quarter of a million deaths. Unless you can find a general pattern of behavior, such as bombing cities indiscriminately or mass massacres on a weekly basis, then theres no argument pertaining to the oppositions terroristic savagery (given the standard they have to live up to).

  • su34

    Where did I’ve made such an affirmation? It was you who invoked history,
    and concluded: “Russians had something coming, and they go it”.
    We’ll probably never know the full truth, but bits can be found here, and there. All are lying more, or less to cover their acts.
    It’s still a bit awkward to compare air violations made deeply in soviet airspace, with sensitive military installations, that concluded with civilian airliners shot down, with the criminal act of shooting a civilian airliner, which respected all laws, and regulations in foreign airspace, while simultaneously violating the same nations waters, and attacking it’s navy. The latter you still tried to excuse, probably influenced by your gov/media propaganda.
    Please read the following material, for a better background on the incident:
    http://alt-f4.org/img/seaoflies.html
    and you could also read the following, for a larger view:
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/07/11/the-shoot-down-of-iran-air-flight-655/
    The first two incidents could probably be avoided, if the yanks wouldn’t had regularly violated soviet/eastern block airspace. Francis Gary Powers rings a bell? How many soviet spy planes were violating, or shot down over yank/western block airspace?
    It’s the obsessive yank/brit spying that is pulling a dark veil over the whole world even today…

  • Mahmoud Larfi

    @E1-Kabong On a scale of 0 to 5, how strong do you actually believe what you’re saying ?

    • E1-Kabong

      Mo, on a scale from 1 to 10, how much of a troll do you think you are?

  • Laura Green
  • Laura Green

    Russia’s innocence in what ?

  • Mladež

    do not forget Serbia

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