On Tuesday, Turkey shot down a Russian military plane, a Sukhoi Su-24, near its border with Syria. Rebels on the ground reportedly shot and killed one of the pilots that were parachuting onto the ground, as seen in the (still unconfirmed) graphic video below.
Turkey claims that the Russian plane was within the country's airspace at an altitude of 6,000 meters when it was shot down, according to Russian news agency TASS, while Russia says that it was still in Syrian territory. Mashable reports:
"Russia said the plane had stayed above Syria while Turkey said it had encroached upon Turkish airspace, and that it warned the Russian plane '10 times in five minutes' about the airspace violation before two Turkish F-16s shot it down."
The Turkish military said, via Today's Zaman, that officials had released a radar map which allegedly provides evidence that the Russian plane was in Turkish air.
Meanwhile, Turkish rebels in Syria took responsibility for shooting the two Russian pilots to death after they parachuted off the plane while the aircraft was crashing near the Syrian border with Turkey.
Deputy commander in a Syrian Turkmen brigade Alpaslan Celik told Reuters: "Both of the pilots were retrieved dead. Our comrades opened fire into the air and they died in the air."
However, Russia has yet to confirm the death of the second pilot. The Russian defense ministry had only confirmed the death of the first pilot, and that a second "soldier" was killed during a rescue operation.
General staff spokesman Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi claimed that the pilot was killed by ground fire while parachuting, while rebels broke fire on a Russian helicopter that was looking for the pilots. One crew member was killed during the shooting, forcing the helicopter to land within neutral territory.
