Nautilus crew reveal details of operation

ANKARA - Hürriyet

Syrian authorities did not manipulate information given to Turkey to locate the remains of the two Turkish pilots who died in a jet crash near Syria, which were retrieved by the Nautilus research ship.

The administrator of the foundation that owns the Nautilus, Bob Ballard, said pulling out the bodies of the Turkish pilots was the Nautilus’ hardest assignment. “The Nautilus crew is still under the influence of the incident,” Ballard said. According to Ballard, the Turkish authorities wanted the bodies to be pulled out as fast as possible and a device called the “elevator” dived in the sea.

“The crew of the Syrian battleship watched our moves carefully,” Ballard said, adding that he got the impression that Syria had cooperated with Turkey and shared all the information they had found. “Syrians were the first ones to reach the location of the wreckage. They gave all the information they had retrieved to the Turkish authorities without any manipulation.” However, he dismissed the question of why he didn’t join the operation of pulling out the other parts of the plane after pulling out the bodies.