According to the Turkish media, the plane had EGPWS.
They are saying the captain has failed the simulator training and was not promoted to captain at his former job and resigned from there. He was promoted at World Focus airlines.
The first officer was a former air force pilot who has flown f-4's and f-16's
The news stories claim the captain wanted to take a short cut and he was not familiar with the airport. He approached from the opposite direction and hit the terrain.
I don't have the time to translate all the news stories, but friends who have done landings at that airport are saying that it looks like a pilot error, and the shortcut speculation is most likely to be true.
Last edited by decemberflower; 3rd Dec 2007 at 06:11.