Journalist Adem Yavuz Arslan has claimed that witness statements, flight records and radar data concerning President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s movements on the night of Turkey’s July 15, 2016 coup attempt do not match the official account, arguing that Erdoğan may not have been on the presidential aircraft said to have carried him from Dalaman to İstanbul.
Arslan made the claim in a video published on his YouTube channel titled “The Great Secret of July 15: Did Erdoğan Actually Board That Plane?”
The video focuses on Erdoğan’s departure from Marmaris, where he was staying at a hotel on the night of the coup attempt, and his reported flight to İstanbul.
The official account says Erdoğan narrowly escaped an assassination team sent to the hotel and later flew from Dalaman Airport to İstanbul, where he addressed supporters at Atatürk Airport.
Arslan said that account is contradicted by several elements in case files and public testimony.
“When you look at the Marmaris events — the most critical component of the July 15 coup attempt claim — from a different angle, a new situation emerges,” Arslan said.
He argued that Erdoğan’s “heroic escape” narrative is not supported by the timing of aircraft movements, witness statements or radar records.
According to Arslan, four aircraft had already been positioned in or near the region during the day on July 15, before Erdoğan said he learned of the coup attempt from his brother-in-law.
He said the aircraft included the presidential plane, which he claimed had been kept in İzmir since July 11, as well as private jets linked to businesspeople Mübariz Mansimov, Ali Raif Dinçkök and Mehmet Cengiz.
Arslan said those flight movements suggest preparations had been made well before the evening.
He also questioned Erdoğan’s statement that the pilot did not initially know whether to fly toward Ankara or İstanbul.
According to Arslan, flight data showed the aircraft moving west and then north, rather than taking a route consistent with uncertainty between Ankara and İstanbul.
Arslan further said the presidential plane allegedly circled near Biga for about 40 minutes around 2:15 a.m., while Erdoğan’s account suggested the delay was due to security concerns at İstanbul’s Atatürk Airport.
He claimed that air traffic records and testimony showed the airport tower had already been retaken and reopened to flights by about 1:10 a.m., before the official time given for Erdoğan’s departure from Dalaman.
Arslan also cited testimony attributed to then-1st Army commander Gen. Ümit Dündar, who said he did not meet Erdoğan face to face until around 6:30 or 7 a.m. on July 16.
Arslan said this conflicts with Erdoğan’s account that Dündar and the İstanbul governor met him at Atatürk Airport after his arrival and helped coordinate the response there.
Another contradiction, Arslan said, involves former AKP lawmaker Şirin Ünal.
He cited testimony from Lt. Gen. Nihat Kökmen, who said Ünal called him at 2:43 a.m. and said he was with Erdoğan.
Arslan argued that, under the official timeline, Erdoğan should have been in the air at that time, making Ünal’s statement difficult to reconcile with the official account.
Arslan also questioned the timing of Erdoğan’s FaceTime appearance on CNN Türk and other media contacts that night, suggesting that some of the calls may not have been made from Marmaris, as widely understood, but from another location such as Çıldır Airport in Aydın.
He said the content of Erdoğan’s remarks in those broadcasts appeared not to refer to some key events that had already occurred if the official timing is accepted.
Arslan also referred to testimony from Dalaman Airport officials concerning security arrangements around the presidential plane.
He said statements in the parliamentary coup investigation file indicated that only Erdoğan’s protection team was allowed near the aircraft and that technical personnel were kept away.
He further claimed that cameras facing the parking area of the presidential plane had been repositioned before the aircraft arrived, leaving no clear footage of Erdoğan boarding or leaving the plane.
Arslan said the lack of such footage is central to his claim.
“Erdoğan may in reality have never boarded that plane,” he said.
The allegation does not independently establish that Erdoğan was not on the aircraft.
But it adds to a long-running counter-narrative that focuses on unresolved questions about Marmaris, Dalaman Airport, the timing of Erdoğan’s departure, the alleged assassination team and the conduct of senior officials on the night of July 15.
Turkish Minute reported in 2016 that a Muğla court had accepted an indictment accusing 47 people, including 37 military personnel, of attempting to assassinate Erdoğan at the Marmaris hotel.
The Stockholm Center for Freedom has separately argued that conflicting public accounts by Erdoğan and other senior officials, as well as unanswered questions about the conduct of intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and then-chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar, cast doubt on the official narrative of the coup attempt.
Arslan, an exiled journalist based in the United States, has been targeted by Turkish authorities in post-coup cases, according to the Stockholm Center for Freedom.
Ankara blames the coup attempt on the Gülen movement, a transnational civic initiative inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, and designates the movement as a terrorist organization.
The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Arslan said the central issue is not whether every detail of July 15 can yet be established, but whether the official account can withstand comparison with flight records, radar data and witness statements.
He argued that the available material shows Erdoğan’s Marmaris-to-İstanbul account should be reexamined rather than accepted as settled fact.
