Fierce air battles in the Aegean took place today as Turkey continues to challenge Greek dominance.
Without any planned exercise and of course without any flight plans being submitted by the Turkish side, the Turkish Air Force proceeded to send massive formations of its fighters to the Aegean, raising the tension again.Eleven fierce dogfights took place as the Turkish pilots disobeyed the instructions of the Greek pilots and the interception turned into a standoff.
According to military sources, who spoke to Pentapostagma, the fact that 16 of the 18 fighters were armed, indicates that the Turks were still prepared for a more intense escalation of air battles. "It was as if they were looking for an accident, in order to justify what was coming", he said characteristically.
The aerial battles took place mainly in the area of the "triangle" Lemnos, Lesvos, Chios. The Turks also sent two drones and a CN-235 naval cooperation and intelligance gathering aircraft to the Aegean.
Turkish aircraft recorded a total of 65 violations of the National Airspace. The 47 violations occured by the two drones and only 18 by the fighters, indicating that the Turkish fighters came in purposefully to engage the Greek fighters in search of a casualty…It is also no coincidence that the Turkish fighter jets entered the Aegean en masse without any exercise, on a day that the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis from Tanagra characteristically stated: "The fifth successively upgraded F-16 Viper is ready to fly from here to Tanagra and to go to Crete to take up duty and here the technical center of EAB acquires two more important facilities manufactured by Lockheed Martin, for the sake of this long cooperation that it has with the Hellenic Aviation Industry.I believe these are developments that make us all proud, because on the one hand they confirm the consistency in the program of strengthening our Air Force. And on the other hand, I had the opportunity, Mr. Minister and Mr. Chiefs, to be in person a few weeks ago in Souda, listening to our pilots explain to us how important the F-16 Viper aircraft are.
That is why, after all, the government accelerated this plan from the beginning, so that in 2027 we will have 83 such fighters. I want to emphasize for the sake of historical consistency that the contract to upgrade the F-16s to Vipers was signed with the previous government in 2018, with the support of New Democracy at the time.
But it is equally true that if there had not been significant interventions in the operation of the ODA by the current government, it is extremely doubtful that this program could have been implemented.
So with the Viper aircraft, the new also upgraded Block 50 and Block 52 aircraft, which are also planned, with the new 24 Rafale aircraft, which we will have received in full within the next year, but also with an F squadron -35 years later, as Greece has officially expressed its interest in joining the program of this important fifth generation aircraft, the Greek skies are shielded as never before.
At a time, in fact, in which our threatening neighbors, instead of co-producers, have now been definitively excluded from the fifth generation fighters. And instead of having similar fighters, they gasp for the possibility of modernizing, perhaps, one day, their own F-16s." At the same time, Turkey questioned Greek sovereign rights on the occasion of an aeronautical exercise, that is to take place tomorrow in the area of Kastellorizo.
It asked for the demilitarization of the unspoiled Greek island, adding that the specific area is an area of Turkish jurisdiction in terms of issuing NAVTEX and reserving areas for exercises.
