Turkey's President Abdullah Gul said Saturday the jet fighter shot down by Syria might have violated Syrian airspace.

"It is routine for jet fighters to sometimes fly in and out over (national) borders ... when you consider their speed over the sea," Gul told Anatolia news agency. "These are not ill-intentioned things but happen beyond control due to the jets' speed."

The president also said contacts were under way with Syria though Turkey withdrew its diplomats from its embassy in Damascus in March, and expelled the Syrian diplomats from the Ankara embassy after the escalating violence.

"We withdrew our envoy from Syria for security reasons. This does not mean that we have no contacts (with Damascus)," Gul also said.

The military plane vanished off radar screens around 0900 GMT Friday after it took off from an airbase in Malatya city in Turkey's southeast.

Syria confirmed it had downed the plane and Turkey's government said Ankara would take all necessary steps once it had established the facts.