July 15 and Akıncı Air Base (10): Recording of the F-16 pilot who bombed the palace

The conversations between the 93-0671 tail-numbered F-16 jet's pilot who took off with the code name "Lion 6" and the tower at the Akıncı Air Base were fully recorded. The dialogues happened in the morning of July 16, 2016. It was the last F-16 flight to take off from the base used by the coup plotters. 

As a result of the two U.S.-made MK-82 bombs' explosion, fired by the pilot - each containing 89 kilograms of explosives - 15 people, who had at that point gathered around the presidential palace to stand against the coup attempt, had lost their lives. 

The coup-plotting military officer voicing his appreciation with the words "Well done" to the pilot who dropped the bombs was 141st Fleet commander, Hasan Karakuş, the son-in-law of Gen. Akın Öztürk, former Air Force Commander and currently a coup suspect under arrest.

The pilot flying the F-16 was Lieutenant Müslim Macit from the 142nd Fleet in the Akıncı Air Base. He was 28 years old.

Macit is seen in a security camera footage, walking in the 143rd Fleet's corridor, which is in the coup's main headquarters at the Akıncı Air Base, on the night of July 15, 2016, when the coup attempt was launched. The recording points to 23:09 p.m.

Macit's testimony with the prosecutor concerning this event overlaps exactly with the official recordings of the tower-aircraft conversations. "I dived and shot by sending one MK-82 to the junction. I was in contact with Karakuş Yarbay from the tower. I shot upon his order. "I also dropped a bomb next to the mosque," he says.

An important aspect regarding Macit is that he is one of the most important confessors in the Akıncı case. "I did not know that at that moment, we, in other words, the service [Gülen] movement, the brotherhood was...