Turkish armed forces command announced on Wednesday it had found the bodies of both pilots of the plane which was dropped by Syrian anti-aircrafts last month.

Turkish armed forces command announced on Wednesday it had found the bodies of both pilots of the plane which was dropped by Syrian anti-aircrafts last month.

Turkish military is condusting a search operation for pilots

The military said it was working to retrieve bodies belonged to Air Force Captain Gokhan Ertan and Air Force Lieutenant Hasan Huseyin Aksoy.
It did not specify where the bodies were found, but there has been no report that the pilots ejected from the plane.

The military has been conducting a search operation since the jet was downed on June 22 and this week brought in a specialized ship to recover the wreckage, some 1,000 meters underwater.

Turkey has heightened military activity along its border with Syria since the incident and scrambled F-16 fighter jets on three consecutive days in the past week.

Syria says it downed the jet in self-defense when it was inside Syrian airspace. Turkey says the plane accidentally violated Syrian airspace for a few minutes but claims it was later brought down in international airspace.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assured, in an interview with Turkish paper published on Tuesday, that the plane was downed after it entered the Syrian airspace.

As he regretted the downing of the jet, Assad rejected Turkey's accusations that the Syrian defense forces intentionally shot down the Turkish F-4 jet.
H e said the plane was flying in an air corridor used three times in the past by the Israeli airforce.