Rebel jets had Erdogan’s aircraft in their sights

At the height of the attempt to overthrow Turkey’s president, the rebel pilots of two F-16 fighter jets had Tayyip Erdogan’s aircraft in their sights. Yet he was able to fly on.

The Turkish leader was returning to Istanbul from a holiday near Marmaris after a faction in the military launched the coup attempt on Friday, sealing off a bridge over the Bosphorus, trying to capture Istanbul's main airport and sending tanks to parliament in Ankara. "At least two F-16s harassed Erdogan's plane while it was in the air and en route to Istanbul. They locked their radars on his plane and on two other F-16s protecting him," a former military officer said. "Why they didn't fire is a mystery," he said.

Coup plotters

A senior Turkish official said Mr Erdogan’s jet had been harassed by two F-16s commandeered by the coup plotters but that he had managed to reach Istanbul safely.

A second senior official said the jet had been “in trouble in the air” but gave no details. Mr Erdogan said as the coup unfolded that the plotters had tried to attack him in Marmaris and had bombed places he had been at shortly after he left. He “evaded death by minutes”, the second official said.

About 25 soldiers in helicopters descended on a hotel in Marmaris on ropes, shooting, just after Mr Erdogan had left, in an apparent attempt to seize him, broadcaster CNN Turk said.

Prime minister Binali Yildirim had also been targeted in Istanbul and had narrowly escaped, the official said, without giving details.

Flight tracker websites showed a Gulfstream IV aircraft, a type of jet owned by the Turkish government, circle in what appeared to be a holding pattern just south of Istanbul, around the time a Reuters witness in the airport was still hearing bursts of gunfire, before finally coming in to land. – (Reuters)