Turkey shoots down Russian warplane, pilot rescued (Updated)
Tensions soared yesterday as Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border which it claimed had violated its airspace. One of the two pilots has now been reported to have been rescued.
Tensions soared yesterday as Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border which it claimed had violated its airspace. One of the two pilots has now been reported to have been rescued.
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Afternoon update
One pilot rescued
Moscow, AFP – Russian and Syrian special forces have freed the second pilot of a Russian warplane shot down by Turkey and he is now at a Russian airbase, the defence minister said Wednesday.
"The (12-hour) operation ended successfully. The second pilot has been brought to our base. He is alive and well," RIA Novosti state news agency quoted defence minister Sergei Shoigu as saying. He thanked "all our guys who worked at great risk all night."
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, later confirmed the rescue on Russian television.
Tensions soar as Turkey shoots down Russian plane
Ankara, Turkey, AFP – Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border on Tuesday, causing international powers to plead for calm as tensions soared between the two rival players in the Syria war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed Ankara as "accomplices of terrorists" while the Russian military announced it would cease all military contact with Turkey.
Moscow said one of two pilots who ejected from the Su-24 plane was killed by gunfire from the ground as he descended, although Turkish officials insisted both were still alive.
A file picture taken on October 3, 2015 shows Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers standing on an airfield at the Hmeimim airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia. AFP PHOTO / KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA / ALEXANDER KOTS
A Russian soldier was also killed when a helicopter search-and-rescue operation came under fire, the Russian defence ministry said.
US President Barack Obama said Turkey had "a right to defend its territory and its airspace" but urged against any escalation, while NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also called for calm.
The incident risks derailing efforts to bring peace to Syria that were gaining tentative momentum following the November 13 Paris terror attacks, claimed by Islamic State militants who control swathes of northern Syria.
The Turkish army said the fighter was shot down by two of its F-16s after it violated Turkish airspace 10 times within a five-minute period.
A US military spokesman in Baghdad confirmed that 10 warnings had been issued, but said it was not immediately clear on which side of the border the jet had been flying.
Moscow insisted that the jet had stayed inside Syrian territory, and Damascus denounced the incident as "flagrant aggression" against Syrian sovereignty.
Turkish television pictures showed the Su-24 exploding and crashing in a ball of flames into a Syrian mountain and two pilots parachuting to the ground after ejecting.
A Turkish government official had earlier insisted both pilots were still alive, but Russian military spokesman General Sergei Rudskoi said one had been killed by fire from the ground.
Alpaslan Celik, a deputy commander in a Syrian Turkmen brigade (C), holds handles believed to be parts of a parachute of the downed Russian warplane near the northern Syrian village of Yamadi, near the Turkish-Syrian border, Syria, November 24, 2015. REUTERS
The fate of the second pilot was unknown. Rudskoi said a soldier had been killed in a failed bid to rescue the pair after one of his squadron's helicopters was damaged by gunfire and had to land. The other members of the squad were successfully evacuated.
The shooting down of the Russian plane is the first of its kind since Moscow launched air strikes in Syria in September in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, causing concern in the West over a possible clash with US-led coalition planes also in the skies.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov scrapped a planned visit to Turkey Wednesday while Putin branded the shooting down of the aircraft a "stab in the back committed by accomplices of terrorists".
He said oil from jihadist-controlled territory was exported through Turkey while funding was sent the other way, and warned: "The tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."
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