ESKISEHIR, Turkey
A formal farewell ceremony for two Turkish pilots, who were killed Thursday in a jet crash in central Turkey, was held Friday at a military base in Eskisehir province.
An ambulance transported the bodies of Staff Captain Pilot Mustafa Tanis and Staff Captain Pilot Mustafa Delikanli to Eskisehir’s Combatant Air Force and Air Missile Defense Command from a military hospital.
Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Ozel, Eskisehir Governor Gungor Azim Tuna, as well as force commanders and other high officials were among those who attended the ceremony.
“The first day we joined the military forces we swore we would gladly sacrifice our lives for the sake of this job’s duties and the Republic,” First Main Jet Base Commander Brigadier Gen. Kemal Akpinar said.
“We witnessed how two heroes, Staff Captain Pilot Mustafa Tanis and Staff Captain Pilot Mustafa Delikanli, fell to the ground to defend their country,” Akpinar added.
Later, Tanis’s funeral was held in the Turkish capital Ankara, which was attended by relatives as well as by government officials, including Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek, Gen. Necdet Ozel, Deputy PM Bulent Arinc, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz and Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz.
“The spirits of our martyrs will be present in the spirit of our brave army,” Deputy Head of Religious Affairs, Hasan Kamil Yilmaz, said at the funeral ceremony.
Delikanli's funeral was held in Istanbul, which was attended by his relatives, as well as by Education Minister Nabi Avci, First Army Commander Gen. Salih Zeki Colak, Combatant Army Air and Missile Defense Commander Gen. Abidin Unal, former Land Forces Commander Hayri Kivrikoglu and Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, former president Abdullah Gul as well as Turkish Armed Forces and the Ministry of Education sent wreaths at the pilot's funeral ceremony.
Erdogan in a speech Friday assured that the cause of the accident would be thoroughly investigated.
The Thursday crash involved an F-4E 2020 training aircraft that took off at 8.58 a.m. from Eskisehir province and crashed Thursday morning at a shooting range in Turkey's central Konya because of an unknown reason, the General Staff said on the day of the crash.
This was the second aircraft accident in the last two weeks. Four pilots were also killed on Feb. 24 when two military RF-4E aircraft lost contact during reconnaissance flights in the Akcadag district of Turkey's southeastern Malatya province.
