One of Russian pilots shot down by Turkey is dead

Russian military helicopters searched for the pilot and navigator near the crash site in the predominantly Turkmen Bayir Bucak area, Turkey’s Dogan news agency reported.

Turkey said that they shot down the Russian warplane “near the Syrian border after repeated warnings over air space violations” but Russia said “it could prove the jet had not left Syrian air space”, according to Reuters.

Details about the incident still are being investigated, he added. Russia’s defence ministry said one of its Su-24 fighter jets had been downed in Syria and that, according to preliminary information, the pilots were able to eject.

It comes as Barack Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the need to contain escalating tensions with Russian Federation over the incident which has triggered a major diplomatic confrontation.

He added: “It fell on Syrian territory, four kilometres from the Turkish border”.

Turkey on Tuesday said a warplane believed to be a Russian type SU-24 has been shot down on Tuesday for violating Turkeys airspace, media reports said.

Russia’s General Staff said that airfield radar at the Hmeymim base showed that it was the Turkish fighter jet that actually entered Syrian airspace as it attacked the Russian bomber.

Later in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the action a “stab in the back by the terrorists’ accomplices”.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation foreign ministers announced in April 2014 that they had suspended indefinitely all practical civilian and military cooperation with Russian Federation, following the start of the Ukraine crisis.

“Everyone must know that it is our worldwide right and national duty to take any measure against whoever violates our air or land borders”, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

Moscow insisted the jet had stayed inside Syrian territory, and Damascus denounced the incident as “flagrant aggression against Syrian sovereignty”.

The Pentagon says no United States forces were involved in the Turkish downing of the Russian jet. “And they violated it knowingly”, the official said. Russian Federation claimed the aircraft had been over Syria for the duration of its flight.