A serious accident was narrowly averted on Friday afternoon over the Eastern Aegean Sea after a Turkish F-16 fighter jet harassed a Greek military ”Super Puma” helicopter.
According to the Greek daily Kathimerini, the incident was seriously dangerous, because if the helicopter was older, it would probably not withstand the turbulence caused by the Turkish jet’s maneuvers.
According to the Greek Defense Ministry, two Turkish F-16 fighter jets violated the Greek airspace on Friday.
At 12:42 local time (10:42 G.M.T.) the Turkish jets entered without permission from the Athens Flight Information Region (F.I.R.) and flew over the islet of Farmakonisi. One of them approached the Greek helicopter causing severe turbulence.
The pilot of the helicopter managed to stabilize it before it was too late.
Earlier on Friday, another jet, this time unidentified, flew over the islet of Agathonisi.
In addition to these provocations, a new attempt to call the Greek Muslim minority of Thrace as ”Turkish” was conducted on Friday by the country’s Foreign Ministry, when it asked Athens to protect the rights of the ”Turkish” people who live in Thrace.
The spokesperson of the Turkish Foreign Ministry Hami Aksoy called the Muslim population of the Northern Greece’s prefecture of Thrace ”Turks” and called on Greece to extradite all the Turkish nationals who entered the country and are linked to the so-called ”FETO terrorist organization”, which according to the Turkish government, was behind the failed coup of July 2016.
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