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Families of slain Turkish pilots file lawsuit against officials for negligence
The RF-4E Phantom crashed off the Syrian coast on June 22. Syrian authorities claimed responsibility for downing the jet immediately following the incident but defended the action, saying that the Syrian air defense was forced to react immediately to a Turkish jet flying low at 100 meters (330 feet) inside Syrian airspace in what was a “clear breach of Syrian sovereignty.” Syria also said the plane was downed by anti-aircraft fire, rather than by a missile, well within its airspace.
The lawyer of the families of the pilots, Cpt. Gökhan Ertan and Lt. Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy, filed a lawsuit against the military and top state officials for their negligence in and inadequate handling of the downed plane.
Lawyer Mehmet Katar, along with Osman Aksoy, the father of Lt. Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy, held a press conference in his office in İstanbul’s Bahçelievler district on Wednesday and recalled how the incident took place according to the official narrative.
At first glance, the incident seemed to be an unfair attack by Syria, Katar said. However, he argued, contradictory statements and conflicting reports that appeared in national and international media over how the jet was shot down fueled their suspicion.
He claimed that reports and speculation both suggest that Turkish officials might have acted outside of the law before and during the incident. If that turns out to be true, he said, then there is negligence on the part of officials whose mistakes might have led to the deaths of the two pilots.
Katar said there is still no satisfactory or substantial explanation over why the plane was flying in the area and how the jet was shot down.
In the meantime, the Turkish General Staff continues to keep secret the results of post-mortem examinations conducted on the bodies of the two Turkish pilots.
Authorities in charge of investigating the circumstances of the June 22 crash of the military plane in the Mediterranean said in late September that the jet was attacked by Syrian forces while flying in international airspace.
Releasing the findings of an investigation, the General Staff's Military Prosecutor's Office blamed the plane's crash on a missile attack by the Syrian forces, although it did reveal that the aircraft did not crash as a result of being directly hit by a missile.
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