Turkish Army announced that there were no traces of explosives on fragments of the fighter plane shot down by Syrian forces, causing more confusion and questions in Turkish press on the progress of this incident. “We haven’t detected on the fragments (of airplane) recovered from the sea, any traces of flammable or explosive products,” said Turkish Army Staff on Wednesday evening, in a statement, adding that the remaining fragments are at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and will be studied later to reach a final conclusion.
For the first time, the Turkish army did not use the term “shot down by Syria” preferring to talk about “our plane that Syria says that it damaged”, causing some confusion on the ongoing incident, which caused a serious crisis between Syria and Turkey. So far, the Turks insisted on saying that Syria shut down on June 22 one of their F-4 Phantom planes, which was in a training mission in eastern Mediterranean Sea, with anti-aircraft defense shootings or surface to air missiles. The two pilots were killed.
Damascus acknowledged that it destroyed the plane as it entered its airspace. Thursday, Turkish media asked questions, after the military press release, on the reasons for the aircraft collapse, citing a possible accident caused by pilot error or technical failure, but without totally exclude a hostile act.
A former general in the Air Force, Erdogan Karakus, asked by the Hurriyet newspaper, believes that it could have been an accident. “We do not know exactly what happened as the aircraft fuselage could not be studied, but Turkey seems to change its theory,” he told the newspaper. According to another expert quoted by the daily Milliyet, an artillery shell which could had exploded near the aircraft in flight could have destabilized it and could have caused the downfall.
Turkey has denounced it as a “hostile act” by the neighboring state. Relations between Turkey and Syria, former allies, deteriorated since the start of strong suppression of Syrian uprising in early March 2011.
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