Turkey mourns 2 pilots shot down by Syria

ISTANBUL - The Associated Press

AA Photo

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has joined hundreds of mourners at the funeral of two pilots whose jet was shot down by Syria two weeks ago.
 
The somber ceremony took place Friday at an air base in the southern city of Malatya, from where the pilots’ plane had originally taken off. Religious ceremonies will be held at mosques later in the day.
 
Syrian forces shot down the RF-4 plane June 22. Turkey says it was hit in international airspace, but Syria insists it was flying low inside Syrian airspace.
 
The bodies of the pilots, Capt. Gökhan Ertan and Lt. Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy, were recovered from the seabed Thursday after U.S. ocean explorer Robert Ballard, best known for discovering the wreck of the Titanic, helped locate them.