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Turkey Shoots Down Suspected Russian Drone as Syrian Military Launches Offensive

Turkish jets shot down a drone over the country’s airspace near Syria on Friday. While the drone’s nationality hasn’t been definitively identified, U.S. officials told Reuters that they believe it is Russian.

Turkish jets have already been scrambled twice to intercept incursions by Russian aircraft into Turkish airspace since Russia’s air campaign in Syria began a little more than two weeks ago.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/16/turkey_shoots_down_suspected_russian_drone_near_syria.html

Two U.S. Defense officials told CNN that according to initial reports, the aircraft was a Russian unmanned vehicle. The United States is continuing to review intelligence on the incident, officials said.

The drone was given three warnings by the Turkish military, but there was no response, Turkish officials said..

Russia dismissed reports that one of its drones had been shot down. All Russian aircraft returned from their combat missions in Syria, and Russian drones continue their aerial reconnaissance and "are functioning as planned," the Russian defense ministry said via Facebook.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/16/middleeast/turkey-drone-shot-down/

Plantagenet wrote:It makes you wonder why Russia is flying drones over Turkey. Drones have GPS navigation systems, so there's no way the operator didn't know exactly where it was.

Cog wrote:Why do you think its impossible for Turkey to shoot down a drone?

The producer of Orlan drones, St. Petersburg Technological Center, issued a statement of their own, which said that “the photos of the allegedly downed drone published on social media with reference to the Turkish General Staff look more like a poorly-staged informational provocation.”

The company stressed that “it’s definitely not an Orlan” present in the pictures being published on social media. It qualified this, saying that “Russia doesn’t make UAVs with such gliders.”