Mürted lies on the plain north-west of Ankara; Hürriyet Daily News put it about 35 kilometres north of the capital when two RAF Typhoons landed there in December 2024. English Wikipedia, citing a 1986 US Air Forces in Europe history, says the site was allocated to the United States in 1950 and opened in 1960 to defend the capital. No Turkish official source for those two dates could be read for this page, so they are given as Wikipedia’s. The name Mürted means “apostate”; Hürriyet Daily News says it recalls troops who deserted Sultan Bayezid I at the Battle of Ankara in 1402.

The base later took the name of Staff Colonel Erol Akıncı. Anadolu Agency says he was killed on a mission flight in 1968 and that the 4th Main Jet Base Command took his name in 1993. Hürriyet Daily News says Mürted was the name until 1995. Both dates are given here because the sources disagree. The Bayraktar Akıncı drone, flown by the same air force, is a separate subject.

English Wikipedia, citing GlobalSecurity, says a US Air Force munitions support detachment was set up here on 1 July 1965 and that its nuclear mission ended on 25 April 1996. The main public account is independent: Hans M. Kristensen’s 2005 report for the Natural Resources Defense Council. It says storage continued at Mürted and Balıkesir after the squadrons at Erhaç and Eskişehir closed in mid-1991, and that the Akıncı unit, 739 MUNSS, was withdrawn in 1996 and its weapons moved to Incirlik.

The same report counts six Weapons Storage and Security System vaults at Akıncı, with room for 24 weapons, kept in caretaker status and empty in 2005. These are NRDC’s figures from US documents, not an official statement: neither Turkey nor the United States has confirmed where weapons were kept. F-16.net adds that 142 Squadron flew Convair F-102A Delta Daggers from Mürted from 1972.

The Peace Onyx programme gave Turkey an F-16 industry. F-16.net says the jets were assembled by TUSAŞ Aerospace Industries (TAI) at Akıncı, then still called Mürted. Turkey received its first F-16D at a ceremony in Fort Worth in July 1987, and the first Turkish F-16C/Ds arrived at Mürted in October 1987. The first F-16C built in Turkey, serial 86-0068, flew on 20 October 1987.

The contract terms were unusual. F-16.net says TAI was not allowed to sell aircraft directly to the Turkish Air Force. Each locally built jet was first handed to the US Air Force: it flew to NAS Sigonella or another US base nearby, made a touch-and-go, and was then transferred to Turkey. The same line also assembled 46 Block 40 F-16C/Ds for Egypt under Peace Vector IV.

Three squadrons made up the 4th Main Jet Base. According to F-16.net, 141 Squadron, formed at Kütahya in 1937, flew F-104Gs from 1964, became the first operational Turkish F-16 squadron and was at Akıncı by 1994. 142 Squadron flew Deny Flight over Bosnia from Ghedi, Italy, in April–December 1993. 143 Squadron, “Öncel”, the training unit, took its number and moved to Akıncı in 1999, and in 2014 took over reconnaissance with podded Block 40s after the RF-4E retired.

Turkish courts found that the coup attempt was run from Akıncı. The Ankara 4th Heavy Penal Court’s 9,204-page reasoned judgment, reported by Hürriyet in July 2021, says it was directed from a command centre of staff officers set up in the 143 Squadron instructors’ club. Testimony summarised by the columnist Sedat Ergin put it more simply: 143 Squadron decided, 141 Squadron flew.

Hürriyet Daily News, drawing on the indictment and pilots’ radio recordings, lists the Ankara targets. A bomb on the police aviation department at Gölbaşı killed seven. A GBU-10 on the Police Special Operations Department killed 44 and injured 36, the night’s deadliest attack; Wikipedia gives 42. The Ankara police headquarters was hit, killing two and injuring 39. Parliament was bombed about 45 minutes after MPs met at 01:39, and the last bomb, near the presidential complex, killed 15.

Anadolu Agency reports that Bekir Ercan Van, commander of the tanker base at Incirlik, had tankers refuel the jets. The death toll depends on the source. Hürriyet counted six attacks and 13 bombs by F-16s of 143 Squadron. The reasoned judgment, as Hürriyet Daily News reported it, puts 77 killed and 206 injured in bombings by aircraft from Akıncı. Hürriyet gives 77 as all deaths in Ankara that night, including those shot at the base gates, so the two figures are not a clean match.

Nationwide, Anadolu Agency and AFP give 251 killed and about 2,200 injured. The Turkish government and courts blame the movement of Fethullah Gülen, which Turkey calls FETÖ and lists as a terrorist organisation. Gülen denied any involvement, according to Wikipedia’s summary of his statements, and he died in Pennsylvania on 20 October 2024 without being tried. Hürriyet Daily News noted then that he had been the prime suspect in 45 cases, the coup attempt among them.

The plotters brought the high command to the base. Footage reported by Hürriyet Daily News shows the Chief of the General Staff, Hulusi Akar, arriving at about 23:20 once a camera clock 45 minutes fast is corrected. The Land Forces commander, Yaşar Güler, arrived with his eyes and arms bound. Testimony summarised by Sedat Ergin says nine air force generals, seized at a wedding in Istanbul, were also held there.

Former Major General Mehmet Dişli was accused of holding Akar at gunpoint to make him back the coup. In court he said he had been forced to the base himself, and that Akar “might have misunderstood me”. On 16 July the defence minister, Fikri Işık, announced that special forces had freed the commanders held at the base and detained 72 plotters.

Outside, residents of nearby Kazan marched on the base. Hürriyet reported in 2024 that people at the gate were shot at from inside and nine were killed. President Erdoğan put the town’s losses at nine killed and over 90 wounded. Hürriyet Daily News reported that the runways were bombed to stop further take-offs; Wikipedia says loyal F-4E 2020s from Eskişehir dropped the bombs. Adil Öksüz, whom prosecutors call the network’s “air force imam”, was detained near the base that morning, released by a judge on 18 July and has never been tried.

The main trial opened on 1 August 2017 before the Ankara 4th Heavy Penal Court in the purpose-built courtroom at Sincan. According to Hürriyet Daily News there were 486 suspects: 461 in custody, 18 on bail and seven fugitives, Gülen among them. The indictment ran to more than 6,000 pages, and prosecutors asked for 330 life sentences for 45 alleged leaders.

The verdict came on 26 November 2020, against 475 defendants. The four civilians accused of directing the officers, Kemal Batmaz, Hakan Çiçek, Harun Biniş and Nurettin Oruç, received 79 aggravated life sentences each, plus 3,901 years. So did Van and several pilots. Hürriyet counted 291 defendants with at least one aggravated life sentence and 46 with ordinary life terms. That is 337, the total AFP gave. The two outlets differ on acquittals: 70 (Hürriyet) against 75 (AFP). An appeals chamber upheld the judgment on 3 June 2022.

Several defendants denied everything. The former air force commander Akın Öztürk told the court in 2017, “I neither contributed nor knew about this treacherous coup attempt,” and said he had gone to the base to talk to the plotters. Çiçek said a commander had invited him to the base for a social evening. A separate civil suit filed in 2017 against 500 defendants puts the damage to the base at about 5 million lira.

On 6 September 2016 the Air Force Command made the base a reserve airfield and gave it back the name Mürted. Hürriyet Daily News reported that its command was cut from a general’s post to a colonel’s, and that an emergency decree closed its three F-16 squadrons. About 60 aircraft moved to Merzifon, Eskişehir and Konya. The defence minister proposed a “democracy park” on part of the site. The air force purge that followed had dismissed or arrested more than 300 pilots by October 2016.

The airfield soon had a different job. From 12 July 2019 Russian transports flew in the first S-400 battery, and the second arrived from 27 August. In November 2019 F-16s flew over Ankara to test its radars. Washington removed Turkey from the F-35 programme over the purchase. The fighters had left the base three years earlier, and it now received the system that cost the air force the F-35.

Mürted is now Turkish Aerospace’s flight-test airfield. The Hürjet trainer first flew there on 25 April 2023 with an F-16 chase plane, and went supersonic there in October 2024. The KAAN fighter first flew there on 21 February 2024, and a new Hürkuş on 30 December 2024. RAF Typhoons stopped there in December 2024 during the purchase talks. In 2025 the base held repatriation ceremonies after two air crashes, and it handled cargo flights for the NATO summit in Ankara in July 2026.