Ten Turkish fighter jets and one CN-235 maritime patrol aircraft entered Athens’ FIR on Monday without submitting a flight plan violating the Greek airspace 24 times in the Aegean.
Athens’ FIR also recorded six more violations of air traffic rules.
In two cases, the intercepting of two armed fighter jets by two Greek aircraft developed into a dogfight.
The first dogfight took place at 15.00 pm southwest of the island of Psarra, where two Greek fighter jets intercepted a pair of Turkish fighter jets which had entered Athens FIR without submitting a flight plan.
About ten minutes later, the pair of Greek aircraft intercepted two more Turkish fighter jets south of Chios which had also entered Athens FIR without submitting a flight plan.
In all incidents, the Turkish aircraft were recognized and intercepted by Greek fighter jets.
The incidents were witnessed by the Greek frigate “Salamis”, the Turkish frigate TCG Gökova and the Dutch frigate HMS Van Amstel which were sailing in the area in the framework of the NATO operation to stop refugee flows into Greece.
