Turkish passenger plane skids off runway onto seaside cliff

ANKARA, Turkey – A plane with 168 people aboard skidded off a runway onto a seaside cliff after landing at an airport in northern Turkey at the weekend, but no one was injured in what one passenger called a “miracle”.

The Pegasus Airlines flight had taken off smoothly from the capital Ankara bound for Trabzon, where the accident occurred as the plane was landing late Saturday, January 13.

Dramatic images from CNN Turk broadcaster showed the plane lying on the cliffside, its nose just meters (feet) from the waters of the Black Sea and its wheels stuck in mud.

“There was panic, people shouting, screaming,” one of the passengers, Fatma Gordu, told state-run Anadolu news agency. 

“When they told us to leave from the rear exit, everyone tried to push ahead of everyone else. It was a terrible situation.”

She said they could smell fuel and feared that a fire would break out. “That is why we were scared,” she said, adding that there were pregnant women and children on board.

Passenger Yuksel Gordu said it was a “miracle” they were saved. “We could have burned, it could have exploded, we could have fallen into the sea… Every time I think about it, I feel I might go crazy,” she said.

Images from the Dogan news agency showed smoke emanating from the trapped plane and an engine that appeared to have fallen into the water.

According to the agency, the plane was 25 meters (80 feet) away from the sea.

Pegasus Airlines confirmed in a statement Sunday, Januar 14, there were no injuries among the 162 passengers, two pilots and 4 flight attendants.

The cause of the incident was unknown but an investigation is under way, the Trabzon governor’s office said. A crisis centre for the incident was set up at the airport.

“The plane will be removed while all measures have been taken for other work and procedures. These will be carried out step-by-step,” Trabzon governor Yucel Yavuz told Anadolu.

He added that a small number of people asked to go to hospital but did not give further detail.

The Trabzon public prosecutor has launched a separate criminal probe. Dogan agency said the prosecutor would seek statements from the six crew onboard.

The airport was temporarily shut before reopening early Sunday, while an operation to remove the plane continued.

Professor Atakan Aksoy from Karadeniz Technical University’s civil engineering department said that the construction of a second runway needed to be “accelerated”.

“These kinds of accidents can happen due to the narrow ground surface in the northern part of the airport and because it is near a cliff,” he told Dogan agency. – Rappler.com