Russian Fighter Jet Shot Down By Turkey

Can we start making mottos for WWIII yet?

I got a few:

WWIII: ***just got real.

WWIII: It's Bush's fault!

WWIII: War on Religion.

WWIII: You Only Live Once

WWIII: Thanks, Obama!

WWIII: Benghazi

WWIII: *** it, we'll do it live!

WWIII: "*** China....and Mexico." - President Donald Trump

...No?

Pictures are posted in Random P&R, I like the one where the plane is leaving a giant trail of fire.

I just hope that the ejected pilots aren't captured by some extremist mob.

Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday, saying it had repeatedly violated its air space, one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the plane had been attacked when it was 1 km (0.62 mile) inside Syria and warned of "serious consequences" for what he termed a "stab in the back". Russian and Turkish shares fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies.

Each country summoned a diplomatic representative of the other and NATO called a meeting of its ambassadors for Tuesday afternoon.

Footage from private Turkish broadcaster Haberturk TV showed the warplane going down in flames in a woodland area, a long plume of smoke trailing behind it. The plane went down in area known by Turks as "Turkmen Mountain", it said.

Separate footage from Turkey's Anadolu Agency showed two pilots parachuting out of the jet before it crashed. A Syrian rebel group sent a video to Reuters that appeared to show one of the pilots immobile and badly wounded on the ground and an official from the group said he was dead.

Russia's defense ministry said one of its Su-24 fighter jets had been downed in Syria and that, according to preliminary information, the pilots were able to eject.

"For the entire duration of the flight, the aircraft was exclusively over Syrian territory,” it said.

The Turkish military said the aircraft had been warned 10 times in the space of five minutes about violating Turkish air space. Officials said a second plane had also approached the border and been warned.

"The data we have is very clear. There were two planes approaching our border, we warned them as they were getting too close," a senior Turkish official told Reuters.

"We warned them to avoid entering Turkish air space before they did, and we warned them many times. Our findings show clearly that Turkish air space was violated multiple times. And they violated it knowingly," the official said.

A second official said the incident was not an action against any specific country but a move to defend Turkey's sovereign territory within its rules of engagement.

Russia's decision to launch separate air strikes in Syria mean Russian and NATO planes have been flying combat missions in the same air space for the first time since World War Two, targeting various insurgent groups close to Turkish borders.

A U.S. official said U.S. forces were not involved in the downing of the Russian jet, which was the first time a Russian or Soviet military aircraft has been publicly acknowledged to have been shot down by a NATO member since the 1950s.

The incident appeared to scupper hopes of a rapprochement between Russia and the West in the wake of the Islamic State attacks in Paris, which led to calls for a united front against the radical jihadist group in Syria.

Russia's main stock index fell more than two percent, while Turkish stocks fell 1.3 percent. Both the rouble and lira were weaker.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was briefed by the head of the military, while Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was due to report on the incident to NATO ambassadors at 1600 GMT (11:00 a.m. ET). He also ordered consultations with the United Nations and related countries.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the warplane crashed in a mountainous area in the northern countryside of Latakia province, where there had been aerial bombardment earlier and where pro-government forces have been battling insurgents on the ground.

"A Russian pilot," a voice is heard saying in the video sent to Reuters as men gather around the man on the ground. "God is great," is also heard.

The rebel group that sent the video operates in the northwestern area of Syria, where groups including the Free Syrian Army are active but Islamic State, which has beheaded captives in the past, has no known presence.

The official from the group, who declined to be named for security reasons, did not mention the second Russian pilot.

Broadcaster CNN Turk earlier reported that one of the pilots was in the hands of Turkmen forces in Syria who were looking for the other one, citing local sources. Russian military helicopters were also searching for the pilots, Turkey's Dogan news agency said.

Both Russia and its ally, Syria's government, have carried out strikes in the area. A Syrian military source said the reported downing was being investigated.

Turkey called this week for a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss attacks on Turkmens in neighboring Syria, and last week Ankara summoned the Russian ambassador to protest against the bombing of their villages.

Ankara has traditionally expressed solidarity with Syrian Turkmens, who are Syrians of Turkish descent.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to visit Turkey on Wednesday to discuss Syria, in a trip arranged before this incident. Erdogan is meanwhile expected to visit Russia for talks with Putin in late December.

About 1,700 people have fled the mountainous Syrian area near to the Turkish border as a result of fighting in the last three days, a Turkish official said on Monday. Russian jets have bombed the area in support of ground operations by Syrian government forces.

Some Western analysts characterized the downing of the jet as a robust response by Turkey which they said created clear red lines for Russia and should thereby make further clashes less, rather than more likely.

"Reducing the margin for error in this way lowers, rather than raises, the potential for more serious clashes,” said Keir Giles, associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House in London.

Turkmen forces in Syria shot dead the two pilots of a Russian jet downed by Turkish warplanes near the border with Turkey on Tuesday as they descended with parachutes, a deputy commander of a Turkmen brigade told reporters.

"Both of the pilots were retrieved dead. Our comrades opened fire into the air and they died in the air," Alpaslan Celik, a deputy commander in a Syrian Turkmen brigade said near the Syrian village of Yamadi as he held what he said was a piece of a pilot's parachute.

WWIII: If you like your dictator, you can keep your dictator.

NATO allies will hold an "extraordinary" meeting Tuesday at Ankara's request to discuss Turkey's shooting down of a Russian fighter jet along the Syrian border, an alliance official said.

"At the request of Turkey, the North Atlantic Council will hold an extraordinary meeting at (1600 GMT). The aim of this extraordinary NAC is for Turkey to inform Allies about the downing of a Russian airplane," the official told AFP.

The North Atlantic Council consists of ambassadors from the 28 NATO member states.

I mean we don't even shoot down Russians that continuously have been violating our airspace this year alone.

You can be my wing man anytime Ramy.

Please remember Top Gun was a closeted quasi-homoerotic Cold War fantasy, not a blueprint for international relations.

<_<;

So, the pilots are alive and dead? There's only one explanation for this.

not sure if posted/read or not. but supposedly both pilots killed. and a russian helicopter that was sent to search/rescue the pilots was also shot down.