F-4 Phantom II crashes

Thursday January 10 7:45 AM ET
Two Turkish Warplanes Crash, Pilots Safe
ANKARA (Reuters) - Two Turkish military F4 jets crashed in southeastern Turkey on Thursday but the pilots escaped uninjured, an official said.

State-run Anatolian news agency had initially reported the jets were F16s but it later said they were F4s and that was confirmed by a local government official in the city of Malatya.

``Four pilots were rescued safely,'' the official told Reuters. ``The planes were flying over Malatya. Helicopters have arrived at the scene to deal with the wreckage.''

The official said the planes were on a training flight but there was no information on why they went down. Nobody was immediately available at Turkey's General Staff to give further details.

Last year Turkey lost several military planes in accidents including one in May, when a transport plane crashed killing all 34 people on board.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020110/wl/turkey_crash_dc_1.html