Putschists wanted to use the İncirlik 10th Tanker Base actively for the coup attempt. The commander of the base, Brig. Gen. Bekir Ercan Van was trusted as the “2nd man” in the Air Forces during the coup attempt. Tanker aircrafts with numbers 1, 2, and 3 took off from the base upon the order of Brig. Gen. Van and provided refueling for low-flying jets controlled by putschists above Ankara, Istanbul, Marmara Region, and Central Anatolia Region.
Brig. Gen. Ercan Van did not comply with the order that was given to prevent the coup attempt. He was arrested for arranging the attempt and helping it in the first degree.
On the night of the coup attempt, an order was given for the jets to take off from the 6th Combined Air Operations Center in Eskişehir to prevent the coup attempt of the jets of the 154th Fleet in İncirlik.
Brig. Gen. Van was in the Air Traffic Control Tower and heard the order that was given to them. However, when Gen. Van did not convey the order to F-16 pilots, the pilots did not take off to prevent the coup attempt. Disobeying the order, Van gave an order to ready 7 tanker aircrafts to help the putschists. 3 of those planes were used for refueling and the other 4 did not take off.
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Statement of Lieutenant Fatih Akbulut:
"I feel consciously responsible for providing fuel to the fighter jet that dropped bombs and killed people. I didn’t attempt the coup."
Governor of the province, Chief Public Prosecutor, and Brigade and Gendarmerie Commanders called Brigadier General Bekir Ercan Van on the phone, but failed to convince him. Besides the base commander, 10th Tanker Base Comand Chief of Staff, Support Troop Commander colonels and pilots acted together. It was later revealed that the officers who were thought to resist the coup were sent to foreign missions or homes.
He rested the pilots which can join the coup attempt
It was found out that Brig. Gen. gave an order to the pilots and the flight team that would join the attempt to rest and get ready for the attempt. Van ordered the personnel to finish working at 3:00 PM using the high temperature as an excuse. Van also warned the personnel that would carry out the refueling and maintenance to not use the radio of the base and their cell phones, but to communicate face to face.
He rejected the claims
As an answer to the question “Why did you let tanker aircrafts take off to refuel F-16 jets?”, Brig. Gen. Van said: "Jets of the coup attempt was bombing everywhere. Tanker aircrafts took off to provide fuel for F-16s which were going to stop these jets." Van was discharged from TAF with the decree “Regarding the Adjustments of Some Organizations and Institutions and Measures Required under the State of Emergency.”
He ‘distributed duties’ to civilians
It was revealed that İncirlik Commander Brig. Gen., who conducted the refueling of jets controlled by putschists in Ankara and Istanbul and who requested asylum from the USA after the coup attempt failed, had a meeting one day before the July 15 and was planning to have a meeting with 400 people 8 days after the attempt. The details of those meetings were revealed. According to the sources, Van had a meeting with 25 people, one of which was a women and 25 of which were mainly businessmen, and told them "Don’t worry. Everything is going to be great". And he half-jokingly turned to some of the people and said ‘Do you want to be a mayor?”, “Do you want to be a head physician?”
Brig. Gen. Van told about jet hangars and arsenals to the group he had a meeting with and took them to some “secret” places and told what he could do with them in order to prove his power. This way, he demonstrated his power to the people who attended the meetings and showed that he trusted them. It was later revealed that the Brig. Gen. Bekir Ercan Van had a similar meeting one month previous.
Foreign delegation visits which got more frequent
In the investigation, the frequent and extraordinary visits of foreign delegations to İncirlik base in the last 2 months caught attention. Even though those visits did not draw any attention then, it didn’t make sense that all of those visits under the disguise of “courtesy visit” or “touristic trip” were with the Base Commander Bekir Can Van. A civilian putschist who was caught in İstanbul confessed that these delegations consisted of intelligence officers from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and USA; and that soldiers came in civilian clothes. According to this civilian, they discussed bringing armed militia from these countries after the coup, if required.
