US vessel finds bodies of downed Turkish pilots

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s military says bodies of two pilots whose jet was shot down by Syria have been found in the sea bed.

State-run TRT television says a US deep-sea exploration vessel, E/V Nautilus, found the bodies in eastern Mediterranean on Wednesday.

Syrian forces shot down the RF-4 plane on June 22. Turkey says it was hit in international airspace while Syria insists it was flying inside Syrian airspace.

The downing of the plane has worsened already tense Turkish-Syrian relations.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.