New Provocations on the Greek-Turkish border

Cyprus and Greece to protest harassment of passenger planes by Turkish fighter jets
By George Psyllides

THE Government said yesterday it would be filing official complaints against Turkey following an incident where two Turkish jets buzzed a Cyprus Airways (CY) flight just outside the Nicosia flight information region (FIR).

Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou described the action as “unacceptable”, stressing that both Greece and Cyprus would be filing complaints.

An Olympic Airways flight from Larnaca to Athens had also been harassed by a pair of Turkish jets just 10 minutes before CY flight 323.

The CY Airbus 320 with 56 passengers aboard was flying at 33,000 feet, 35 nautical miles west of Rhodes, when the incident took place at 10.34am.

“It is something for which complaints will also be filed by the Greek side because it happened inside the Athens FIR, and from the government because a Cypriot aircraft was harassed,” Papapetrou said.

He added: “It is an unacceptable action but I don’t want to give it a bigger dimension.”

CY spokesman Tasos Angelis said on Thursday that the airliner’s pilot had been warned by the control tower at Athens airport that two aircraft, “believed to be military and Turkish”, had flown near an Olympic Airways plane travelling from Larnaca to Athens earlier in the day.

The combat jets got close enough for the plane’s Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) to sound twice to warn the pilot to change altitude, he said.

“This has happened in the past, but this time it was quite close,” Angelis said.
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THIS IS WHY the Cyprus Air Force NEEDS long-range interceptors with a BVRAAM capability. This sort of behaviour cannot be tolerated again and again and again.

Icarus – what are the closest HAF interceptors to this region?

Twi.

Launch at Twilight – “Thermal Crossover”