Turkish Air Force F-16s fighter planes force Syrian civilian plane to land at Ankara airport for investigation

Syrian Air Flight 442 (RB442), an Airbus A320 registered YK-AKE suspected of carrying weapons from Moscow to Damascus was forced to land at Ankara Esenboğa Airport on Oct. 10, 2012.

The civil liner, with 35 passengers on board, was intercepted by the Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jets as it entered the eastern part of the Turkish airspace and it is currently being inspected.

25 Turkish F-16s were moved to Diyarbakir airbase on Monday following the border crisis with Syria.

Noteworthy, the flight from Moscow can be tracked until it reached Ukraina using ADS-B.

Turkish planes have been banned from flying in the Syrian airspace: flights carrying pilgrims to Jeddah landed in Adana, due to the closure of Syria’s airspace.

Image credit: TuAF

About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

3 Comments

  1. a question folks,
    what kind of weapons can be carried on a commercial plane? small arms? 10 or 20 grad rockets or 155 mm shells? does syria even need that? syrians can produce small arms and artillery ammunition, even Fateh 110 missiles under license of Iran industries (named Teshrin in syria). so what is this really for?
    Syria have acquiered several C-802/3 and p-800 launchers from iran and Russia and right now it needs Mi-28 helicopters and T-90, BMP-T tanks, and those would not be carried on Commercial even cargo planes,

    • almost every kind of weapon can be carried on BOEING 737 (syr442). it’s the easiest, cheapest and the safest way to carry weapons and most important of all it’s also the best way if you wanna carry them secretly…

  2. The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced today that the Syrian aircraft had ammunition aboard from a Russian manufacturer. The ammunition was destined for the Syrian Ministry of Defence.

Comments are closed.