ISTANBUL — Turkish officials said that an aircraft believed to belong to the Syrian military crashed near the Turkey-Syria border Saturday, with the Syrian opposition claiming to Turkish media they were responsible for shooting the plane down. Syrian government sources later reportedly confirmed that contact had been lost with a low-flying plane over Idlib, but said this was due to technical difficulties.Contact with the jet was lost and the military is now searching for the pilot, who had ejected, the SANA news agency reported, citing a military source.Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has confirmed that a Syrian military plane had crashed in south Turkey's Hatay province.Media reports said, citing Turkish sources, that the jet was a MiG-23 fighter rather than a MiG-21.Debris of a crashed Syrian fighter jet were found near the Turkish border with Syria, according to the Hatay province governor.The pilot apparently had ejected, the governor added.According to the Daily Sabah newspaper, the found pilot has been injured. Hatay governor Erdal Ata told state-run Anadolu news agency that rescue teams had arrived at the wreckage and reported that the cockpit was empty, confirming earlier reports by local villagers who claimed to have observed the pilots ejecting. The Syrian army lost contact with a jet performing a reconnaissance mission near the Turkish border, local media said Saturday.Earlier in the day, fighters from Syria's Ahrar al Sham Islamist extremist group claimed to have shot down a Syrian government MiG-21 fighter jet over the Syrian province of Idlib.
A Syrian Air Force MiG-23 fighter jet crashes in Turkey's Hatay Province near the Syria–Turkey border after an engine failure.