reply to post by ElectricUniverse
Except they didn't fly over US or Canadian airspace. They flew along the edge of it, and were escorted while flying through the area.
There are a lot of conflicting reports on the incident with the Turkish jet. It's not even clear whether it is an RF-4E (which is a recon version of
the F-4E) on an ISR mission, or an F-4E or even a flight of F-4Es testing air defenses in the area (which a pretty common thing to do. We still do it
to a number of countries with RC-135s, just out of missile range).
One version has it probably flying at fairly high altitude and being hit by an SA-5 Gammon, a surface to air missile built by the Soviet Union in the
1960s. Another version, from the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has it being hit by gunfire approximately 1km off the coast (there's even a
video of some AA guns firing at a beach with a bunch of beach goers watching, but there's no sign of a plane or of a plane being hit).
There were apparently two aircraft flying on the mission, if it was an RF-4, it was probably flying outside Syrian airspace when it was hit, and
crashed inside their airspace.
edit on 6/22/2012 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)
