Bodies of 2 Turkish jet pilots Syria downed found - San Francisco Chronicle

Istanbul --

Aided by the U.S. explorer who found the wreck of the Titanic, rescue teams from Turkey on Wednesday located the bodies of two Turkish pilots whose unarmed jet was downed in the Mediterranean by Syrian gunners nearly two weeks ago.

Turkish military authorities said the bodies of the pilots were discovered in an unspecified location on the seabed.

The June 22 downing of the plane, an RF-4 reconnaissance aircraft, worsened the already tense relationship between Turkey and Syria. Turkey is allowing Syrian insurgents sanctuary along the 550-mile border with Syria, and thousands of Syrian refugees have taken shelter in Turkish camps.

Turkey said the plane was conducting a harmless mission to test the nation's radar system when it was shot down in international airspace after briefly straying into Syrian territory in the Mediterranean border region. Syria says the plane was shot down by gunners who had mistaken the Turkish plane for an Israeli one.

Turkey, a NATO member, has rejected that explanation as absurd, citing intercepted communications that showed the Syrians knew exactly whom they were shooting at.

Turkish news outlets said the rescue efforts to locate the pilots were aided by a U.S. deep-sea exploration vessel led by Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the wreckage of the Titanic in 1985.

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