Exiled journalist Adem Yavuz Arslan has presented radar records that he says strike at the heart of Ankara’s account of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt by showing no fighter jet in a position to bomb parliament when explosions tore through the building.
The same records also raise questions about the attack on the police Special Operations headquarters in Ankara’s Gölbaşı district, where dozens of officers were killed.
Turkish prosecutors claimed that F-16 fighter jets operating from Akıncı Air Base bombed both sites. The attacks became central images in the government’s account of July 15 and were used to support life sentences against military officers.
Arslan examined radar images published by Fatih Yılmaz, who said the material had not been disclosed during the coup trials.
The records show the location and direction of aircraft flying over Ankara at the relevant times.
According to the analysis, the second explosion at parliament occurred at 3:22:15 a.m., based on the building’s security camera footage.
Prosecutors placed the explosion at around 3:24 a.m. and claimed that an F-16 dropped two unguided MK-82 bombs.
However, the radar image for the 20 seconds before the explosion shows no aircraft heading toward parliament.
All recorded aircraft were more than five miles from the building when the explosion occurred, according to the analysis.
Yılmaz said an F-16 dropping an unguided bomb would have needed to fly toward the target for several seconds before releasing the weapon. The aircraft should also have been close to parliament when the bomb struck.
No such flight path appears in the radar records.
The analysis also notes that a journalist reporting live from parliament said she heard no aircraft before the explosion and suggested that the blast could have resulted from tank or helicopter fire.
QUESTIONS OVER FIRST EXPLOSION
The records also raise doubts about the first explosion at parliament, which prosecutors said occurred at 2:35 a.m.
The indictment attributed that attack to an aircraft identified as number 105 and said it used a GBU-10 laser-guided bomb.
Flight records cited by Yılmaz, however, show that the aircraft took off at 2:33 a.m.
That would have left only two minutes for the jet to take off, climb, approach central Ankara, identify the target and release the bomb.
The prosecution did not produce cockpit video or digital weapons records showing the moment either bomb was released.
Military aircraft record flight and weapons data through onboard systems. Such records would have provided direct evidence of which aircraft released a bomb, when it was released and where the aircraft was positioned.
Those records were not presented publicly.
GÖLBAŞI ATTACK ALSO IN QUESTION
Arslan said radar data created the same problem for Ankara’s account of the bombing of the Special Operations headquarters in Gölbaşı.
Court records show disputes over the time of the explosion, the tail number of the aircraft blamed for it and whether the aircraft identified by prosecutors had released any ammunition.
Defense lawyers repeatedly requested examination of radar records, cockpit data, black-box information and aircraft maintenance forms.
They argued that the prosecution had failed to establish a physical link between the accused pilots, a specific aircraft and the bomb that struck the facility.
The radar material should have been among the first records examined by prosecutors seeking to identify the aircraft responsible for the deadliest attacks of the night.
Instead, according to Arslan, it was kept out of the trials while courts relied on statements, reconstructed timelines and the government’s account of events.
If no jet was in a position to release the weapons when parliament and the police headquarters were hit, a question at the center of July 15 remains unanswered:
Where did the bombs come from?
