Turkish military releases recording of warning to Russian jet

[riversedge]

Source: the guardian




Turkish military releases recording of warning to Russian jet

Surviving crew member of downed plane is rescued in 12-hour mission and says there were no warnings


Shaun Walker in Moscow and Kareem Shaheen in Beirut

Wednesday 25 November 2015 13.51 EST
Last modified on Wednesday 25 November 2015 15.02 EST


The Turkish military has released what it says is an audio recording of a warning it gave to a Russian fighter jet before the aircraft was shot down near the Syrian border, hours after the surviving Russian crew member insisted there had been no contact.

A voice on the Turkish recording can be heard saying “change your heading”. But Konstantin Murakhtin, a navigator who was rescued in a joint operation by Syrian and Russian commandos, told Russian media: “There were no warnings, either by radio or visually. There was no contact whatsoever.”

He also denied entering Turkish airspace. “I could see perfectly on the map and on the ground where the border was and where we were. There was no danger of entering Turkey,” he said.

The apparent hardening of both countries’ versions of events came as Russian warplanes carried out heavy raids in Syria’s northern Latakia province, where the plane came down. Tuesday’s incident – the first time a Nato member state has shot down a Russian warplane since the Korean war – risks provoking a clash over the ongoing conflict in Syria, where Russia has intervened to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad..........................

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/25/second-russian-pilot-shot-down-turkey-alive-ambassador

[w0nderer]

1. K & R N/T

[louis-t]

2. And we should stay the fuck out of it.

Period.

[davidpdx]

9. Yes we should

Now with Turkey and Russia at each other's throats it will only get worse.

[bananas]

10. "the first time a Nato member state has shot down a Russian warplane since the Korean war"

If this continues to escalate - and it looks like it will - our NATO treaty requires us to get involved. If we don't, it could cause NATO to dissolve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military structure in 1966 for 30 years.

<snip>

Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the 11 September 2001 attacks,[6] after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF.

[David__77]

4. Both sides could be right in a sense.

Turkish armed forces could have issued statements on some channel that wasn't monitored by the Russian armed forces.

[Igel]

5. The Turks said it was some emergency channel.

Another OP quoted a pilot that heard it and recorded part of the transmission on his phone.

Still, you might be right. If they were ordered not to monitor emergency channels because then they'd have plausible deniability, it's a coherent story.

All the more damning, though. Sort of like sticking fingers in your ears and singing LA-LA-LA-LA, then saying you didn't hear when the girl changed her mind from "yes" to "no." "Sorry, you honor, I heard her give consent, but never heard her say 'no'."

I buy it just as much as the judge would.

[LisaL]

11. The plane was shot down over Syria, not Turkey.

So if Turkey claims they warned the plane, the plane already left the airspace when it was shot.

[uhnope]

6. Russia occupied Ukraine for "ethnic Russians" --Turkey shoots down Russian jets for ethnic Turks

Beating Putin at his own game.

He's been bombing the fuck out of Turkmen in an area where there's no ISIS, because the Turkmen oppose Putin's pal Assad.

Russian planes slaughtering Turkmen are pretty much fair game for Turkey, by Putin's own logic.

[uhnope]

8. you are welcome, almost to 50.

[LisaL]

12. If Turkey shot it down in revenge, then maybe it should stop pretending

it shot it for entering the airspace. Plane clearly was not in Turkey's airspace when it was shot down.

[roamer65]

13. Maybe the Greeks should start shooting down Turkish jets that violate their airspace?

Turkey routinely violates Greek airspace, so does Greece have that right? Erdogan was quoted three years back saying that an incursion is not grounds for a shoot down. Normal rules of engagement have clearly been violated by Turkey.

So what has changed his mind in this instance? The Russians aggressive targeting of illegal Daesh oil trafficking by Erdogan's son, Bilal, perhaps?

I am no big fan of Erdogan, nor Putin, but Turkey clearly overstepped the bounds on this incident.