Atlasjet Flight 4203

Atlasjet Flight 4203

TC-AKM, the aircraft involved in the accident parked at Warsaw Chopin Airport in August 2007.
Accident summary
Date November 30, 2007 (2007-11-30)
Summary Controlled flight into terrain, pilot error, spatial disorientation
Site Near Yenitepe, Keçiborlu, Turkey
37°52′24″N 30°12′07″E / 37.87333°N 30.20194°E / 37.87333; 30.20194Coordinates: 37°52′24″N 30°12′07″E / 37.87333°N 30.20194°E / 37.87333; 30.20194
Passengers 50
Crew 7
Fatalities 57 (all)
Survivors 0
Aircraft type McDonnell Douglas MD-83
Operator Atlasjet
Registration TC-AKM[1]
Flight origin Istanbul Atatürk Airport, Istanbul, Turkey
Destination Süleyman Demirel Airport, Isparta, Turkey
Istanbul Atatürk Airport
Isparta Süleyman Demirel Airport
Crash site Keçiborlu
Location of departure and destination airports

Atlasjet Flight 4203 (KK4203) was a scheduled domestic flight from Istanbul's Atatürk Airport to Isparta Süleyman Demirel Airport in Isparta, Turkey. On November 30, 2007 it crashed outside the town of Keçiborlu (near the village of Yenitepe), 18 km (11 mi) from Isparta at around 01:36 EET (23:36 UTC on November 29).[2] The flight took off from Istanbul at 00:50 EET with 57 people on board, including a six-week-old baby which had not been counted on departure from the airport.[3] Atlasjet Airline's CEO Tuncay Doganer reported that no one had survived the crash.[4]

The plane was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 which Atlasjet leased from World Focus Airlines, whose pilots were flying it when it crashed.[5]

The accident was the fifth-deadliest aviation incident in 2007, behind One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269, Adam Air Flight 574, Kenya Airways Flight 507 and TAM Airlines Flight 3054.

Crash site

Local officials said the plane had broken into two pieces, with its fuselage and rear landing in different places. The Anadolu Agency news service said the plane's wings and engine were at the top of a hill while the fuselage was 150 m (500 ft) lower. A local reporter at the scene described luggage and debris strewn across a large area, which police have cordoned off. It was reported that the plane crashed away from the typical flight path. Officials are confused as to how the plane ended up there.[6]

Investigation

Investigators found the two black boxes (the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder) during the afternoon of the day of the crash. Weather conditions were good at the time of the flight,[7] with a visibility of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi), and the aircraft had no known technical issues. The pilots were experienced and had just come out of a routine training session a few days before the accident, as reported by the Anatolian News Agency.

Upon investigation of the black box of the aircraft in Lufthansa laboratories, the cockpit voice recorder device was found to have been inoperative for the 9 days leading up to the accident,[8] in contravention of regulations which specify that it must be made operable within 72 hours of the fault being discovered.[9] In addition, the flight data recorder was not working properly and only contained 15 minutes of flight data.[8] Analyzing the available data from the flight data recorder, the authorities declared that the accident was caused by pilot error as a result of the condition known as spatial disorientation.[10] The pilot is believed to have lost the sight of line for the horizon and instead of trusting the flight instruments, diverted the aircraft to the route where the crash occurred.

The final report by the Turkish Accident Investigation states that the crew was on the racetrack VOR/DME approach to runway 05 at 12 DME, when the crew started to follow a wrong heading for the final approach of 073 instead of 043 until impact with terrain. The Turkish Transport minister stated that the crash was a “normal CFIT by the fault of the crew.” The report states that the EGPWS was not able to produce audible alarms due to a defect. Both captain and first officer were rather inexperienced and it was their first approach to Isparta. They did not enter the Standard Instrument Departure of Istanbul or the Standard Arrival Route and approach procedure of Isparta into the flight management system.[11]

References

  1. ↑ "Passenger aircraft crashes in Turkey". FlightGlobal. 2007-11-30. Archived from the original on 2 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  2. ↑ Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved on 2007-11-30.
  3. ↑ "Physics expert, baby among plane dead". CNN. Archived from the original on 2007-12-01. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  4. ↑ "'None survive' Turkey plane crash". BBC News. 2007-11-30. Archived from the original on 30 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  5. ↑ "Plane crashes; no survivors found". CNN. 2007-11-30. Archived from the original on 2 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  6. ↑ Hacaoglu, Selcan (2007-12-01). "Turkey plane crash kills all 57 on board". Associated Press via The Roanoke Times. Archived from the original on 2007-12-04. Retrieved 2007-12-01.
  7. ↑ "Hunt for clues in Turkish crash". BBC News. 2007-11-30. Archived from the original on 1 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  8. 1 2 "Black box of crashed plane was out of order". Today's Zaman (newspaper). 2007-12-31. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
  9. ↑ "Temporary Guidance Leaflet No. 26" (PDF). Joint Aviation Authorities. 2007-06-01. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
  10. ↑ "Pilot error caused plane crash that killed 57". Today's Zaman (newspaper). 2007-12-12. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
  11. ↑ http://avherald.com/h?article=3fe1024f

External links

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