The RF-4E Phantom, an unarmed reconnaissance jet, crashed off the Syrian coast on June 22 amid tensions between Turkey and Syria over Syria's brutal crackdown on an anti-regime uprising. The bodies of the two pilots, Capt. Gökhan Ertan and Lt. Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy, were subsequently located by a specialized ship. However, the cause of death is still a secret, as officials have refused to make autopsy details public.
Apparently, the families have also been denied access to the findings of the autopsy examinations. The autopsy reports are currently at the Malatya Prosecutor's Office. Osman Aksoy, the father of Lt. Aksoy, was quoted by the Taraf daily on Tuesday as saying: “We still haven't been given any information regarding the autopsy report. As his father, I still haven't seen the report. As his father, as his family, it is our right to know how the plane crashed, how my son died. We are still waiting. Whatever happened should have come to light already.”
Ali Ertan, the father of the other pilot, said: “We have only been told that the plane crashed and our son died. We haven't been given any conclusive information regarding the incident. We are still waiting for the autopsy reports.”
Syrian authorities claimed responsibility for downing the jet immediately following the incident but defended the action, saying that Syrian air defense was forced to react immediately to a Turkish jet flying low, 100 meters 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, and was well within its airspace.
The Zaman daily on Monday published a story claiming that according to a recent accident report drafted by the Air Forces Command, the two pilots became aware of missiles headed toward the jet and attempted to escape, but lost control of the aircraft due to an explosion in the air caused by the missiles. The report found that the plane later fell from an altitude of 7,400 feet and crashed into the water at 482 km/h.
An earlier report from the General Staff released on Sept. 19 had said that the plane crashed because the pilots were affected by a blast effect caused by the force of an explosion outside the plane.