[jayess]

The whole thing seemed fishy that night. I was watching Erdogan's plane circle southwest of Istanbul for an hour or so on FlightRadar24. Then suddenly it lands where just a couple of hours earlier coup-controlled tanks were patrolling the runways. Huh? The "coup" had control of fighter jets that were buzzing Istanbul and Ankara (live on TV), yet they let his plane circle, for all to see, just minutes away?

[neurotech1]

It appears that there were multiple F-16 sorties flown.

Apparently, Early on, a "coup" F-16 dropped bombs near the presidential palace.

The Blackhawk (possibly with door gunners) and Cobra attack helicopters were "coup" controlled. One Blackhawk was shot down by a "loyalist" F-16. The sonic booms heard later in the morning were likely loyalist F-16s. An F-16 can't stay in afterburner, or fly supersonic at low altitude for very long even with external tanks. The loyalist F-16s were refueled in the air from a Turkish AF tanker.

If there were coup controlled F-16s anywhere near Erdogan's aircraft, it would be stupid to fly in circles. The F-16s could shoot it down from over 20 miles away. It was more likely they were waiting for ground forces to secure the runways before landing.

Note: This is based on my opinions, and available public news sources.

[tim333]

The timing of events at Erdogan's hotel in Marmaris seem very odd too. I'm having a job getting accurate info from the press but it seems roughly:

21:15 - Statement read on state-owned TRT says military has "completely taken over the administration of the country to reinstate constitutional order". - That's when I started following it on CNN and similar

2126 - President Erdogan facetimes people to take to the streets to protest. Speaking to a CNN Turk reporter via a cellphone video link he says it will meet a "necessary response". He says he is returning to the capital Ankara. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/turkey-timeline-coup-a...

Erdogan is spoken to by various media and photographed at his hotel http://qz.com/733810/after-the-military-seized-state-media-t...

Some time later 3 helicopters turn up to get Erdogan at the same hotel he's been photographed at and then left "after about 1.5 hours after Erdogan's departure from the hotel is by the soldiers in the coup attempt was made ​​here attacks. " http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yerel-haberler/mugla-haberleri/er...

You'd think the normal timing would be try to detain Erdogan, then announce coup then press turn up, not announce coup, allow global live press coverage for a couple of hours, then try to catch Erdogan. I realise there may have been confusion but phones, the internet were working normally. They could have whatsapped 'got him yet?' or phoned or whatever. Or turned on the TV and watched CNN and seen his flight on flight24 before going to his hotel.

Odd.

Update - the daily mail says they went to the wrong hotel http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3695470/The-luxury-s...

But also the soldiers were looking for Erdogan at 3.30am, long after he'd gone. And presumably after the photographers had packed up and gone home. Maybe they don't bother checking the news or AlJazeera's twitter feed? Or just coup theatre perhaps. Mail's account from some hotel guests:

>But they were woken at 3.30am by the popping of guns – which they thought at first were fireworks – and his wife Theresa went to the door to see what was going on.

>She was met by the sight of military rebels running around the hotel armed with machine guns.

>'You want to see what is going on, but she found herself face to face with a soldier with a machine gun in his hands,' continued Mr de Graaf.

>The soldiers were shouting in broken English: 'Where Erdogan stay? Erdogan stay?'

[AndyNemmity]

Absolutely, I watched every bit of news as it happened, and the video channels.

The military that were holding areas were told it was a drill. It was by far one of the worst coups from an organizational standpoint I've ever seen.

That leaves you with either

1. A extremely poor, unfocused, and uncoordinated coup that had real intentions, but was rushed and ultimately had no chance of succeeding.

2. Erdogan knew a coup was going to happen, and pushed them to go forward with it while he was safe, with protection from fighter jets, etc.

3. A staged coup, and the fighter jets were always part of Erdogan's attempt, at the beginning flying low as a show of support, and at the end, validating he can land safety with no lucky/unlucky coup member getting to take him down.

And, I don't really know. It's one of those, but there isn't enough evidence in any direction to really make a claim of anything in my view.

I will say, none of it makes any sense. Erdogan telling everyone to take the streets to stop this felt ridiculous during it, but afterwards makes a ton of sense.

Most of the military didn't know they were in a coup. And the only shutdowns were things that could potentially alert the military on what was going on, facebook, cellphones, etc.

But I think you have to take it at face value, and go with option 1 unless other evidence comes.

It was already pretty shaky that they had a list of judges to immediately sack 2 hours after the coup. I mean, that's incredible timing.

Edit: I'd also like to add,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cia-officials-turkey-cou...

Ignore the tone, but it was incredible during the coup,

Robert Baer, a veteran former CIA officer said

“I have been involved in coups before,” he said. “They should have taken CNN Turk and closed it down the first minutes, the radio station, social media, the internet. Even if they didn’t arrest [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, they should have taken care of all of that right at the beginning.”

Baer also revealed that he had discussed the possibility of a coup with Turkish military officers in the past few months.

“I’ve been speculating with Turkish officers a couple months ago about a coup and they said, ‘Absolutely not,’” he said. “And clearly they’re not involved, so there’s limited support for this.”

-----

At the time when we said it, everyone focused on how inappropriate it was to be giving the coup leaders advice, but if you remove that from the equation, what you have is legitimate criticism as to the plan, and more questions that don't have answers regarding who actually started this in the Turkish military.

[tim333]

For what it's worth the official Turkish position is 4) "Military coup was well planned and very nearly succeeded, say Turkish officials" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/military-coup-...

[sitkack]

Do you have video of this? Interested.

[jayess]

Here's the FlightRadar24 track of his jet: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/tk8456/#a5a3952

[tim333]

Erdogan gives his version to CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/18/europe/turkey-president-er...

[AndyNemmity]

""Starting from the moment we landed, F-16s started flying above us, very close to the ground," Erdogan said."

The F-16s had him locked in, and never fired. Which was odd.

It all doesn't really make a ton of sense, but it's possible.

[zymhan]

It would be pretty unprecedented for the coup members to shoot down the sitting president's plane. They would almost certainly just prevent him from landing, or allow him to land and arrest him immediately.

[AndyNemmity]

The official story is the coup plotters attacked the hotel where he was staying, so it wouldn't be unprecedented given the official story.