Turkish warplane crashes in Central Anatolia, killing one

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A Turkish F-16 warplane on Thursday night crashed in the Central Anatolian province of Nevsehir, some 260 kilometers (161 miles) southeast of capital Ankara.

The Turkish army’s General Staff said in a statement that the aircraft went down due to unknown reasons during a training flight.

A military “personnel” was killed, and search and rescue teams retrieved his body, the army said without further specification.

State media reported that medical teams and firefighters were dispatched to the rural area in Nevsehir’s Ovaoren village.

Earlier in the day, bombardment by Turkish warplanes killed four men in the Kurdistan Region.

They were celebrating Newroz (Kurdish New Year) in the mountainous area of Choman which regularly comes under fire by a Turkish air campaign targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters based there.

Thursday’s crash is the fourth time this year a Turkish aircraft went down.

In mid-February, a Turkish SF-260D military training plane crashed at an air force base near the Aegean city of Izmir.

Earlier that month, Kurdish fighters defending the Afrin region in Syrian Kurdistan from a Turkish invasion shot down a Turkey-made ATAK attack helicopter, killing two aboard.

In January, days before Turkey launched its offensive against the Syrian Kurds, a military transport plane crashed, killing two pilots and a technician.

Having received the green light from Russia that controls the western part of Syrian airspace, the NATO member country’s air force was instrumental during its assault on Afrin that killed many US-armed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters, and at least 250 civilians.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany