Associated Press is reporting that Bulent Arinc , the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, held a press conference to announce that Syrian forces have fired on another Turkish plane. The Turkish aircraft was a CASA search and rescue plane which was participating in the search of survivors from the Turkish RF-4E reconnaissance aircraft that the Syrians shot down on Friday.
There are no reports as to whether the Turkish plane was hit. The Deputy prime minister stated that the Syrians stopped firing after a warning from the Turkish military.
Much has been written about last weeks incident. Both Turkish crew members from that flight are still missing. Turkey is meeting with its NATO allies to discuss the situation. Some have speculated that Turkey had been deliberately provocative in that incident.
I'm rather skeptical of that analysis, and today's incident (if confirmed) would suggest that it is the Syrian military which has been trigger-happy. I would think that in the aftermath of last weeks tragedy, the Syrians would have issued orders to their air defense forces along the Turkish border to revise their rules of engagement, so as to prevent and future incidents.
The Syrians firing on a Turkish search and rescue plane, seems hard to explain as an innocent mistake. Surely the Syrian commanders should have urged more caution on their anti-aircraft batteries, in order to avoid escalating the tensions between the two countries.
11:38 AM PT: TPM is reporting that the attack on the search and rescue plane occurred over the weekend. The plane was not hit and the crew returned safely to Turkey.