Video: Turkey shoots down Russian airplane

Turkey shot down a Russian war plane Tuesday, saying it violated Turkish airspace. But Moscow officials said the jet fighter was flying over Syria at the time.

“We are looking into the circumstances of the crash of the Russian jet,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to the Associated Press. “The Ministry of Defense would like to stress that the plane was over the Syrian territory throughout the flight.”

NATO’s governing body called a meeting Tuesday to discuss the incident at the request of Turkey, a member of the alliance.

Turkey said its F-16s fired upon the Su-24 only after giving the Russian aircraft several warnings that it had entered Turkish airspace.

Associated Press footage shows airplane falling out of sky.

The pilots parachuted out of the plane but Moscow said it had no further contact with them.

Jahed Ahmad, a spokesman for the 10th Coast Division, an insurgent group in Syria, said its forces fired at the Russian pilots as they descended to the ground, the AP reported.

The group released a video showing gunmen standing around a battered man in aviator gear who appeared dead.

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