Was Turkey's F-4 Shot Down Over Syria by a Lawyer?
Only a lawyer has been prosecuted following the shooting down of a Turkish jet over Syrian airspace in June 2012.
On June 22, 2012, an F-4 Turkish air force plane was shot down by Syrian air defenses. Two pilots were killed in the plane that crashed into the Mediterranean. Multiple investigations were carried out, but the prosecutor is investigating only a lawyer who is charged with "revealing state secrets" and "endangering the state’s military operations." How Syria’s shooting down a Turkish plane ends with an investigation targeting a lawyer in Turkey is an interesting saga that would make anyone ponder.
After the shooting down of the plane, there was a long debate both in Turkey and abroad whether the plane was shot down over Syrian territorial waters or in international airspace. Further questions remained, such as: What was the Turkish plane doing there? And how will Turkey respond? One month after the incident, Sedat Ergin of Hurriyet Daily patched together statements from the Turkish military command and pieced together, in detail, the circumstances of the incident. Ergin wrote:
"On June 22 at 10:30, the plane takes off from the Malatya Erhac base first flies toward Cyprus ... then turns toward Syrian airspace, and at 11:42 it enters Syria’s 12-mile-wide airspace at an altitude of 200 feet, about 70 meters. According to the official Turkish account, the plane remains in Syrian airspace for five minutes, exits at 11:47 and directly enters Turkish airspace west of Hatay. The second test flight leg starts from Hatay ... Contact was lost with the plane one mile outside Syrian airspace."
Everyone knows the rest. The Turkish plane was shot down by Syrian air defenses. There is a dispute whether the second leg of the flight violated Syrian airspace. Even if it had, Syria’s shooting it down without warning is a matter of contention from the international law angle. But this article will try to dwell on what happened after the plane was shot down.
