Yahoo – AFP,
14 January 2018
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 |
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.
Dramatic
images from CNN Turk broadcaster showed the plane lying on the cliffside, its
nose just metres (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 metres (80 feet) away from the sea.
Pegasus
Airlines confirmed in a statement Sunday there were no injuries among the 162
passengers, two pilots and four flight attendants.
Pegasus
Airlines confirmed in a statement Sunday there were no injuries
among the 162
passengers, two pilots and four 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.
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