What a piece of "news", what "reporting"...
First of all, let me state I have no relations with Tarkim or any other FTO in Turkey. These views are my own.
Not sure how the translation of that "article" reads in English but after the first few paragraphs of facts about the incident and generalizations about the supposed state of flight schools and general aviation in Turkey, it suddently turns into a full on slandering of the flight school.
The quoted expert pilot is the owner of the site, living in Germany (coincidentally the same country as the individual with a message count of 1 who gave the link to that article above, I guess) and quoting his own opinions on an article on his own site. Not to suggest that he is being biased but the "news article" turns into a column piece halfway through, with some very irrelevant pieces of the author's (oh sorry, the expert pilot's) views on who he believes to be the only flight schools actually working professionally in Turkey at the time.
Quoted from the link:
Expert pilot Volkan Sürmeli stated that there are only 4 flight schools in Turkey and that only these 4 schools do their jobs diligently and the others treat their activities as sources of income as opposed to training institutions.
He earlier states that in the current (at the time) situation in Turkey where the economic situation led to 40 students being left high and dry halfway through their ATPL training, for which they paid in cash up front (not by Tarkim) that it seemed Tarkim was skimping on maintenance of their fleet and were not worried because they would get their money from insurance anyhow.
In a bizarre twist of fate, in the two years that have passed since the article was penned, one of the "dependable" schools on his list of 4 has closed down and left 55 students without the licences they were training for or any sort of refund. The court cases are ongoing.
In yet another article that this expert wrote on this crash (
link), he states that he knows the instructor pilot well and spoke to him just days before the incident. He goes on to state that the instructor did a great job of finding the perfect location to land the stricken plane with minimal damage.
Flight training in Turkey has developed a lot since those years, becoming an attractive location for pilot candidates looking to take the step in their path to a career in piloting. As always, great care should be taken to research the various options available and to make sure that you make the best decision with all the information available to you.
Unfortunately it is very easy to damage the reputation of a company online through anonymous posts by forum members who have just one message to their name. Please think twice about the implications of what you are writing before clicking 'Submit Reply' below.