Turkey’s military has confirmed that two of its pilots were killed on Friday morning near Smyrna when their training jet crashed.
The SF-260D craft went down after taking off from the Cigli/Izmir 2nd Main Jet Base. Wreckage was found about three kilometers (one mile) from the airstrip, the military said in a statement.
Although test flights are considered more risky than regular ones, Turkey’s military has been trying to renew its stock of fighter pilots following a huge purge of its military forces since the coup attempt of July 2016.