Güvercinlik lies in Ankara at about 820 metres above sea level by OurAirports’ figure. Hürriyet Daily News put it 14 kilometres from the headquarters of the Land Forces Command. English Wikipedia lists it as the home of the 1st Army Aviation Regiment, one of four regiments of the Army Aviation Command, alongside Erhaç in Malatya, Gaziemir in İzmir and Samandıra in Istanbul.

For years it was also the home of the Army Aviation School Command, where the army trained its helicopter pilots. In July 2016 its commander was Major General Hakan Atınç, who had led the whole Army Aviation Command from 2015, according to English Wikipedia’s list of commanders. The base’s opening date and runway data could not be confirmed for this page.

On 15 July 2016 the National Intelligence Organisation (MİT) had a tip-off from a major at the base, identified only as Major O.K., Hürriyet’s Sedat Ergin wrote, drawing on the indictment. The Land Forces commander, General Salih Zeki Çolak, went to Güvercinlik for an unscheduled inspection, entering at 18:36. He reported calm to the Chief of the General Staff, Hulusi Akar, at 19:12, called again around 20:15 and left at 21:08 after tea.

On the apron, according to the indictment, four attack helicopters — three Cobras and an ATAK — were parked in the open while ammunition boxes were loaded, and two Sikorsky helicopters were being fitted to carry troops. Ergin’s point was that 48 hours of intensive preparation went unrecognised. Çolak gave his account to prosecutors on 18 July 2016.

After Çolak left, the plotters moved. Major Okan Kocakurt handcuffed the school’s commander, General Atınç. The indictment names the deputy commander, Brigadier General Ünsal Coşkun, as a member of the Gülen network and says Major Deniz Aldemir, commander of a cargo-helicopter battalion with newly bought CH-47 Chinooks, flew putschist officers to the Türksat satellite centre and carried more than a tonne of ammunition from Çankırı to Akıncı air base, the coup’s command post.

Ergin also wrote that the command centre at Akıncı tried to neutralise police special operations units using helicopters from Güvercinlik and F-16s from Akıncı. English Wikipedia records helicopters bombing the police special forces and police aviation headquarters at Gölbaşı between about 23:00 and midnight, and a helicopter firing on parliament at 03:08. Turkey blames the Gülen movement, which denies involvement; the account of the night given here is the prosecution’s.

The timing was an accident of procurement. On 14 July 2016, a day before the coup attempt, the Army Aviation Command took delivery in Ankara of its first Boeing CH-47F Chinook, Doğan News Agency reported: assembled in İzmir and flown to the capital, the first of six bought under a contract of about $400 million signed in 2011, with five more planned for 2018, four of them for special forces. English Wikipedia’s Land Forces article speaks of fourteen. The indictment summarised by Hürriyet names the commander of a battalion of “newly bought” CH-47s among the plotters; whether a Chinook flew that night was not stated in the sources checked.

On 29 July 2016 Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım announced that Akıncı air base would close and that barracks in the capital — Maltepe, Mamak, Etimesgut and Güvercinlik — and the Army Aviation School would move out of Ankara. The school went to Isparta, where Hürriyet Daily News placed it when two of its UH-1s collided in a training flight on 9 December 2024. English Wikipedia still lists the 1st Army Aviation Regiment at Güvercinlik, and the command still flies around the capital: one of its CH-47s crash-landed near Temelli on 21 April 2026, with all five aboard safe.