Turkey shoots down RUSSIAN jet for violating its air space

Turkish military has shot down a Russian war plane near its border to Syria, Ankara and Moscow confirms. The Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet was shot down by Turkish F-16 fighter planes on Tuesday morning after violating the country’s air space and ignoring several warnings, army officials said.

However, Russia’s Ministry of Defence claims the jet was in Syrian airspace, and was shot down from the ground.

Footage shows the plane engulfed in flames as it comes crashing down in Syria’s Turkomen Mountains, an area which has been the cause of recent tensions between Turkey and Russia.

The Turkomen Mountains is mainly populated by Turkmens – Syrians citizens, but ethnic Turks – and has been the target of a Syrian government offensive over the past week, where President Bashar al-Assad’s ground troops have been supported by Russian airstrikes.

According to CNN Turkey, two Russian war planes had entered Turkish airspace and had been warned ‘ten times in the space of five minutes’ before one of the planes was shot down.

Both pilots ejected themselves from the jet and could be seen parachuting down to the ground, where one has been reported as captured by Syrian Turkmen rebels who are hunting for the second pilot.

Just hours before the Russian jet was shot down, Ankara called for a U.N Security Council meeting to discuss attacks on Turkmen areas in Syria.

It followed a summoning of Moscow’s ambassador on Friday, when Ankara called for an immediate end to the Russian military operation near the Syrian border as it targeted Turkmen civilian villages

Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that they are looking into the circumstances of the crash of the Russian jet.

‘The Ministry of Defence would like to stress that the plane was over the Syrian territory throughout the flight.’

The statement also claimed that the Sukhoi-24 had been shot down from the ground at the altitude of 6,000metres(3.73m).