swerve, I already pointed that out in an earlier post and you are right, BUT as I was there there was a high level of alert as a war was going on. A few days earlier the Iranians blew up an UAE oil rig only 20 NM west of Dubai with a plume going right up into the airway. The fact is that the airliners totally ignored the war and flew civilian flights into areas of war. Still a simple call on the telephone or on the 240 guard canal could have told them it was a civilian airliner squarking a civilian code. By the way the Iranians continued to use squarks on their military aircraft which made the situation fragile. Several times a day the ATC unit in the UAE had to direct fighters towards Iranian aircraft flying in the area!
I was in Abu Dhabi as an air traffic controller when the shoot down of the Iran air happened. And it is actually VERY appropriate! Very young nervous trigger happy soldiers not thinking about human life. That was the reason……
Dear Petrus, this been discussed to no end, ICAO rules are for civilian traffic and military traffic only has to stay out of territorial waters. In the Baltic Sea from 1945 to 1990 ten thousand of flight were performed under these circumstances. Only the Russians shot down aircraft, a Swedish Catalina and a DC-3.
I will not participate in this discussion again and it is irrelevant to the situation (I think..)
I still keep to my theory it was a flying mistake! And one should not be killed for that in pease time. I remember 3 shootings downs, The Korean 707 in North Russia, the Korean 747 in Sibiria and the Cessna on Cuba. It seems we have to do with political eagerness 🙁
I think that the Turkish RF-4E was just on a GFA mission (general F…… around) which is the name of a relaxed training mission where they buzzed the turkish beaches of Hatay. I take this from seeing that the 2nd pilot and WSO officer was a VERY young Lt. under training. With a speed of more than 600km/h at low level after the beach tour they could have been slightly disorientated for a minut and that fits with their alleged intrusion into the very northern corner of Syrian territorial waters. I know that the TurAF is much too professinal to schedule an important recce trip towards Syria with a young trainne WSO in the backseat. It is quite possible that the RWR and other systems were not turned on under such a mission which probably was flown to show the new trainee the area.
Here are the official dates:
F-5A
65-10531 1/3/88 wfu 13/9/93
66-14460 (preserved at Istanbul Aviation Museum) 23/10/67 wfu 22/9/81 something WRONG here the preserved one is probably another aircraft!! On 23/10/67 another 3 MAP aircraft were delivered 14464,465 and 466
66-9199 1/3/88 wfu 13/9/93
66-9200 18/8/87 wfu 2/2/94
67-21157 20/3/88 wfu 19/6/96
67-21158 1/1/67 no wfu something WRONG!! preserved at the 6 AB gate
67-21187 1/3/88 wfu 19/6/96
69-7121 1/3/88 wfu 22/9/97 preserved at the 9AB gate
F-5B
66-9234 26/3/87 wfu 16/6/94
67-21283 26/3/87 wfu 20/11/2000 preserved at the 2AB gate
74-0777 20/3/87 wfu 24/2/2006
btw the ex. ROCAF serial numbers does not originate from the TUAF – they have not recorded those (normal practice!!!!)
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