Turkey finds bodies of pilots Syria fired on

Turkey’s armed forces command said yesterday it had found the bodies of both pilots of an RF-4E jet shot down by Syria last month and was trying to retrieve them from the seabed.

Relations between Ankara and Damascus hit a new low after Syria shot down the Turkish reconnaissance plane over the Mediterranean on 22 June, prompting Turkey to threaten to respond “decisively”.

Syria said it downed the jet in self-defence when it was inside Syrian airspace. Turkey said the plane accidentally overflew Syrian territory for a few minutes but was brought down in international airspace.

The military has been searching for the pilots and this week brought in a specialised ship to recover the plane wreckage 3,300ft below the sea.

It named the pilots as air force captain Gokhan Ertan and air force lieutenant Hasan Huseyin Aksoy.

The military did not specify where the bodies were found.

Turkey has heightened military activity along its border with Syria since the incident and scrambled F-16 fighter jets on three consecutive days in the past week after it spotted Syrian transport helicopters flying near its border.

Ankara has said the incident would not go “unpunished” and summoned a meeting of its Nato allies shortly after the incident, but has not retaliated. Both Syria and Turkey have said they do not want armed conflict.