Turkish MD-83 Crash
 

Reuters reports:
(Reuters) - A Turkish plane with 59 people on board has gone missing in central Turkey, the private airline company AtlasJetair said on Friday.
The plane disappeared from radar screens shortly before it was due to land at Isparta, a town about 150 km (90 miles) north of the Mediterranean resort of Antalya.
Chief executive Tuncay Doganer told the CNN Turk broadcaster there were 49 passengers and seven crew. No further details were immediately available.

Atlas Jet MD83 crashed while approaching to Isparta, Turkey. A/C Leased from World Focus.

CORRECTED-Plane carrying 56 goes missing in central Turkey
(Corrects number of people on board to 56 from 59)
ANKARA, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A Turkish plane with 56 people on board has gone missing in central Turkey, the private airline company AtlasJetair said on Friday.
The plane disappeared from radar screens shortly before it was due to land at Isparta, a town about 150 km (90 miles) north of the Mediterranean resort of Antalya.
Chief executive Tuncay Doganer told the CNN Turk broadcaster there were 49 passengers and seven crew. No further details were immediately available

UPDATE 1-Plane carrying 56 goes missing in central Turkey
(Adds more details)
ANKARA, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A Turkish plane with 56 people on board has gone missing in central Turkey, the private airline company AtlasJetair said on Friday.
The plane disappeared from radar screens shortly before it was due to land at Isparta, a town about 150 km (90 miles) north of the Mediterranean resort of Antalya.
AtlasJetair chief executive Tuncay Doganer told the CNN Turk broadcaster there were 49 passengers and seven crew aboard the aircraft, which was flying from Istanbul.
Turkey's state Anatolian news agency said aviation authorities lost contact with the plane at 2336 GMT on Thursday, just after the pilot said he was preparing to land at Isparta's Suleyman Demirel airport.
The agency said a crisis desk had been set up at the airport.
Isparta is a mountainous area of Turkey, which is now in the grip of winter with snow and fog common on higher ground across much of the country.

Crash site found according to Spanish newspaper "El Mundo".

Wreckage of Turkish plane found, says governor
ANKARA, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A Turkish regional governor confirmed the wreckage of a missing plane carrying 56 people had been found on Friday, hours after disappearing from radar screens, the state Anatolian news agency said.
Semsettin Uzun, governor of Isparta province in central Turkey, told the agency military aircraft had identified the wreckage in the mountainous region but had not yet been able to reach the site. There was no immediate word on casualties.

From CNN:
The plane crashed near the village of Keciborlu, Turkish media reported, but officials at Atlasjet were not able to verify the information.

From the NY Times:

A rescue helicopter had reached the wreckage of the plane and reported back that no one had survived the crash.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/eu...jet/index.html
(CNN) -- A Turkish jetliner with 56 people onboard crashed in southern Turkey early Friday as the pilot was preparing to land in Isparta, according to Atlasjet's chief executive officer.
art.atlasjet.jpg

An image grab of the first video to come from the crash site shows the downed plane in southern Turkey.

"Search groups have not seen any survivors as of now," said Atlasjet CEO Tuncay Doganer. "We are hopeful to find some survivors."

The plane went down in a mountainous region near the village of Keciborlu, Doganer said.

Video from the crash site shows the fuselage of the plane largely intact but broken into at least three pieces, with the tail and cockpit separated from the body of the aircraft. There appeared to be no evidence of a fire.

The plane, which was carrying 49 passengers and seven crew, was en route from Istanbul to Isparta when the pilot radioed the tower, saying he was starting his descent. The flight never arrived at the Isparta airport, disappearing around 2 a.m. (7 p.m. ET Thursday).

Atlasjet leased the plane from Worldfocus Airlines, whose pilots were flying it, Doganer said.

Link to Video of crash site
 

According to the pictures from crash site ,looks like a slow speed impact, maybe stall due to engine out while on final or some kind of troubleclose to the ground. Definately low altitude thing....any news on crew reporting any difficulties during final???

Amazing - detailed report of the cause within a few hours of the accident :=

Looking at the video I'm suprised there are no survivors.

LTFC 300120Z 01004KT 9999 FEW035 M01/M02 Q1020 NOSIG
LTFC 300050Z 36005KT 9999 FEW035 M01/M03 Q1020 NOSIG
LTFC 300020Z VRB02KT 9999 FEW035 M00/M02 Q1020 NOSIG
LTFC 292350Z 34006KT 9999 FEW035 M01/M03 Q1020 NOSIG
LTFC 292320Z VRB01KT 9999 FEW035 M00/M03 Q1020 NOSIG
LTFC 292250Z 05004KT 020V090 9999 FEW035 00/M02 Q1020 NOSIG
LTFC 292220Z 02006KT 350V060 9999 FEW035 00/M02 Q1020 NOSIG
LTFC 292150Z VRB01KT 9999 FEW035 00/M03 Q1020 NOSIG

ETOPS; nothing is detailed It is an assumption in plane English...

I agree with SLF that looks quite surviable no fire and fairly intact at least 1 wing attached (only seen the photo) and fairly low speed impact, the only querry is I wonder how many vertical G`s on inpact.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22033274/
updated 2:16 a.m. ET Nov. 30, 2007

ANKARA, Turkey - An Atlasjet plane crashed shortly before it was to land in central Turkey early Friday, killing all 56 people on board, the airline’s chief executive said.

A rescue helicopter had reached the wreckage of the plane on a mountainous region near the town of Keciborlu, in Isparta province, and reported back that no one had survived the crash, airline CEO Tuncay Doganer said.

Doganer said the cause of the crash was not known. But he ruled out weather conditions as a possible cause, saying there was no fog or strong winds at the time of the crash.


The MD-83 jetliner with 49 passengers and seven crew members took off from Istanbul around 1 a.m., headed to Isparta, but went off the radar just before landing at the airport near the city of Isparta.

Helicopters took off from Ankara, the capital, to search for the plane. It was spotted some five hours after it went missing.

'No abnormal situation'
“There was no abnormal situation where weather conditions or the plane’s technical condition are concerned,” Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said.

A reporter for the state-run news agency, Anatolia, who reached the scene on board a police helicopter said bodies were lying around the wreckage, some still attached to their seats.

Pieces of the wreckage and personal belongings were strewn across a vast area. The plane’s front and rear were smashed. Rescue crews were seen placing the dead into body bags.

Soldiers had sealed off the area, keeping people from nearby villages from approaching the wreckage, Anatolia said.

Yildirim said the plane crashed some 7 miles from the airport.

The private airline, established in 2001, operates regular flights inside Turkey and chartered flights to Europe and other foreign destinations.

In 2005, one of its planes ran off a runway in winter conditions, but the company has not been involved in any fatal accidents. In August, one of its planes was hijacked by two men who held several passengers hostage for four hours until they surrendered.

Families of the passengers first rushed to the airports of Istanbul and Isparta for news of their loved ones and later began heading toward the crash scene, private NTV television reported.

In January 2003, a Turkish Airlines plane crashed while attempting to land on a fog-covered runway in the city of Diyarbakir, killing 75 people. Five people survived the crash with injuries.

In May that year, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan and 13 crew members were killed aboard a Ukrainian charter flight that crashed on a fog-shrouded mountain slope near the Turkish Black Sea port city of Trabzon.

In 1994, a Turkish Airlines jet crashed as the pilot tried to land in a snowstorm despite repeated warnings from the control tower to turn back. Fifty-four people were killed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/sto...219693,00.html

The above speculation about this being a slow speed impact has already been used by the Guardian :=

"No matter what measures you take, plane accidents happen... " said Transport Minister Binali Yildirim.

Great, that's really comforting for the victim's families at this time.

The overwing exits are open, but it's probably due to the impact forces... the seats seemed in the right place at a glance. No fire, maybe they run out of fuel :confused:

Last RT
 

Here's a publication from the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet. (In brackets a translation by a friend of mine)
SAAT (Time) 01.18
Kaptan Pilot: Isparta Kule, iyi geceler. (Tower, good evening)
Isparta Kule: İyi geceler, devam edin. (Good evening, continue...)
Kaptan Pilot: Atlasjet KK 4203, Isparta VOR üzeri. (KK 4203 overhead Isparta VOR)
Isparta Kule: Anlaşıldı. In-bound oluş ikaz. (Roger, report in-bound)
SAAT (Time) 01.36
Kaptan Pilot: Isparta kule, in-bound olduk
(Tower, established in-bound)
Isparta Kule: Anlaşıldı Atlasjet. Yaklaşmaya devam edin.
(Roger, Atlasjet. Continue approach)
Uçakla yapılan son konuşmada pilotlar in-bound oldukları yani pisti karşıladıklarını kuleye bildirdiler. Bu noktada uçağın pist başından uzaklığı yaklaşık 18 kilometre. MD-83 tipi uçağın bundan sonra alçalma yaparak piste iniş yapması gerekiyordu.
(last transmission by the crew was 'established in-bound' 18km from the rwy-at this point the MD-83 should normally start it's final approach/descent).
Source: Hürriyet

Just to repeat a previous question, is EGPWS mandated for Turkish aircraft? I'm sure we can all learn from whatever the outcome of the investigation brings.

From the guardian :
A blogger on the Professional Pilots Rumour Network suggested the state of the wreckage implied the crash was a "slow speed impact" and maybe caused by a stalled engine or other problem as the pilot prepared to land.


That link to the Guardian - it has an advert for Vodafone half way down where it shows a phone capable of downloading funny videos from U-Tube. The caption is 'A LAUGH WHEN YOU NEED ONE'. I'm sure the families will really appreciate that and will all be rushing out to buy one. :* Innapropriate or what.

Not the first time this has happened here:

Date: 09/20/1976
Location: Karatepe Mountains, Turkey
Airline: THY Turkish Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 727-200
Registration: TC-JBH
Fatalities/No. Aboard: 154:154
Details: The aircraft struck Mt. Karatepa during an approach to land. The crew attempted a landing at Isparta instead of Antalya.

If the flight was established inbound, then perhaps an error made on a
step down alttitude on the approach.

Don't know the approach for the runway, but assume there would be
a couple of steps with hills like those ones arround the airport.

I had trouble seeing the images...can anyone tell me the position of flaps/slats and landing gear?

does anyone have a copy of the approach?

CFIT?


very sad

The pictures remind me of pics of the Trident crash just out of Heathrow in the 70s where the aircraft stalled and landed flat in a field with little forward velocity. There was no fire, the airframe was largely intact, though distorted, and all on board died. Most died quickly but one or two were removed alive by rescuers only to later succumb. A relatively unusual type of crash. Always stikes fear in me that one as my parents drove round the roundabout in Staines seconds before it crashed there. They heard a big bang and thought it was a gas explosion or something only realising later when they heard the news.

Was the B727 which crashed in 1976 on approach to the same airfield at Isparta?

Subject to copyright of course, can someone post the approach procedures for Isparta?

looking on metar at the time of accident and that they were 10nm out when established,shouldn't they have Visual contact with airport?:bored:

there are some maps and charts here:
http://www.jacdec.de/news/news.htm

http://www.jacdec.de/media/pdf/LTFC_Isparta.pdf

at night there is still ablack hole
 

The terrain was propably not lighted and looks steep there, gear and flaps in landing position to silence EGPWS, sinkrate not that high.

On my plane i would only be warned by stepdown constraints. Non precision at night ist still a killer.

just a thought....sad story.

is there a md jockey out to check this.

maybe I'm being dumb here but from the charts the final approach path to 05 is over the water. If they impacted high ground 4km SW of the airport they were way off course from the final approach track. From the charts available there is no primary procedure, just a secondary let down in the hold.

The whole point of egpws is that the gear, flaps, and low descent rate DON'T silence the warning! :rolleyes:

If the aircraft crashed 4km SW on approach to 05 then would'nt that put it more or less on the extended centreline of the rwy in an area of flatish gnd at the head of the lake. Looking at Google earth, this area is more or less the same elevation as the rwy thr with higher gnd to the north.

I was looking at the hill to the west of the field?

What about radar monitoring?:rolleyes:

did the copi paid for building time?

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...25/Isparta.jpg


Looking at the image, the rwy is 3km long, so 4km SW would be roughly where that elongated brown mountain type of feature is???

That is quite correct. However, the Terrain Clearance Floor function of EGPWS provides no warnings within cca 2 NM from the runway. According to Earl's post, the crash site is 7 NM far. However 4 km would be too close for EGPWS to alarm.

Wonder what the difference in cost is between dealing with this incident and an ILS or MLS installation?

maybe they couldn't install an ILS, because of the obstacles...

Anyway, every airliner crew must be able to deal with NPA (Non Precision Approaches). Because we have so many ILS, people lack the training for NPAs.

Dani