00:17Tonight, a frontline fighter jet fell out of the sky, not in a war zone, not over enemy territory,
00:25but over a highway in western Turkey. Late Monday night, a Turkish Air Force F-16 crashed near the city
00:34of Balakesir, and the pilot did not survive.
00:38Here's what we know. At around 00.50 local time, just before 1 a.m., an F-16 assigned to
00:46the 9th main jet base command in Balakesir took off on what officials described as a mission flight.
00:52Just six minutes later, at 00.56, something went wrong. Radio communication was lost, radar tracking disappeared, and within moments,
01:03the aircraft was gone.
01:05The crash happened near the busy Bursa-Izmir Highway, a major artery in western Turkey. Emergency vehicles rushed to the
01:13scene. Ambulances, police, search and rescue teams.
01:16Videos posted online showed debris scattered across the ground, fragments of metal torn apart, locals gathering cautiously at a distance.
01:25This wasn't a remote military zone. This was near civilian infrastructure. That detail matters.
01:33The Turkish Ministry of National Defense confirmed the aircraft had crashed after immediate search efforts.
01:39In an official statement, the Ministry said the jet lost both radio contact and tracking data shortly after takeoff.
01:45The wreckage was located, and the pilot, they said, had become a martyr.
01:50That word, martyr, carries weight in Turkey A. It signals not just loss, but national sacrifice.
01:57Now attention turns to the question everyone is asking.
02:00What happened in those six minutes?
02:03F-16s are highly sophisticated multi-role fighter jets. Fast, reliable, widely used across NATO forces.
02:11Turkey A has operated them for decades.
02:13So when one crashes shortly after takeoff, investigators look at several possibilities.
02:18Mechanical failure, human factors, weather conditions, or a systems malfunction.
02:23At this stage, officials are saying very little about the cause.
02:26And that's deliberate.
02:29Turkey's Justice Minister, Akun Gerlik, announced that a formal investigation is now underway.
02:34The Balakesir Public Prosecutor's Office has been assigned to examine the incident.
02:39According to Gerlik, a prosecutor, deputy prosecutor, and two additional prosecutors have already gone to the crash site.
02:45This is not being treated as routine.
02:47It's being treated as a serious military and legal investigation.
02:52Accident investigation teams will now analyze flight data.
02:55Maintenance records, pilot communications, and debris patterns.
02:59They'll try to reconstruct the final moments, second by second.
03:02Because when a fighter jet disappears from radar six minutes after takeoff, every second matters.
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