You definitely know something's wrong when someone claims to know the exact cause immediately after (or even during) an incident. Governments and politicians use this tactic all the time!
The gun strolled out of it's safe, climbed into someone's hand and coerced it to chamber a round before squeezing the trigger. The things guns are capable of...
A retired NTSB asked said about Delta 191: "Did the crew do the wrong thing?" Yes, because they crashed but if I ask "Did the crew act appropriately based on the information available at that time?" Yes - their actions were correct. It's disgusting the way 'managers' and interested parties continue to dump on the flight crew ("pilot error") to cover up their own incompetence/greed.
i mean in this case if you think about they're not wrong...the plane was so broken the pilots had to fly it manually. so it crash because the pilots errored
The pilots and crews are the easiest party to blame as they're not here anymore to defend themselves. It's cheap and dirty and they do it all the time. Both aircraft and carrier companies do this.
Well, the regulations are written so that regardless of what happens, it's going to be the Pilot in Command's fault! FAR 91.3 is evident; it's not subject to interpretation like other regulations as a retired professional pilot. From day one, I accepted that if anything went wrong, I would be blamed, whether I was in control or not. People make mistakes, and that is a given. The hardest thing I had to learn about flying was when to say no, I would not do that. It also comes with a cost when you do say no.
Wow. I am from Isparta but grew up in the neighboring city Antalya. I have a lot of relatives in Ispanta. Two of my close relatives were in that flight. They were coming back from visiting their son who qas a lawyer in Istanbul. He called my father who was a medical doctor in Antalya, saying that he cannot reach his parents. Next day my father was at the hospital in Isparta identifing them. It was horrible. Also, there is a conspirisy going on about this accident. Apearently there were scientist who were working on a project with thorium in the flight. Their laptops were not recovered from the wreck. About the company, it survived this accident but not for long. They renamed it to Atlas Global. It did not saved them too, it is now bankruped.
The CEO’s statement just few hours after the accident pretty much confirms that he’s a person with total absence of integrity, decency and moral. A despicable person that should stay in jail for life for the murder of the crew and the passengers.
The fact he made that statement should have immediately caused the crowd to swarm him and gut him alive, killing him right then and there. If humans reacted to evil in that way more often. People wouldn't be so easy to do and act in such wrong manners.
In the USA, that would be 57 counts of negligent homicide, and if I were the judge I'd be inclined to give that CHEAT a year per death, with at least half that amount of time for those who helped him command the cover-up. THAT SAID, most of us have badly skewed perceptions of how long time in prison is... 11 years is a full serving of justice. Even when one serving FEELS inadequate.
Flew on this very aircraft, TC-AKM, then in World Focus livery, just a few months prior, summer of 2007. Then a wet lease for Norwegian. I ended up doing something I haven’t done before or since. I took a picture of the registration to be sure I never boarded that aircraft again. One thing was the state of the cabin which was… well worn to say the least. That aircraft hadn’t seen a qualified tech in a long time. But much worse: we were perilously close to a CFIT on approach to Dubrovnik in broad daylight! I was looking UP at the airport on base, then 2 seconds later TOGA thrust but no go-around, resulting in a steep, violent turn and landing. I was shaking, almost crying. When this accident happened, Norwegian denied having used them. That upset me so much I sent my photo to the newspaper. Much backtracking from Norwegian ensued.
Wow that's absolutely crazy considering the mountains around Dubrovnik as well. I think you were very lucky it was in daylight with good visibility, at night you might've crashed. If I remember there was even another crash at Dubrovnik where a plane of diplomats slammed into a mountain due to disorientation.
As a Norwegian living in Munich, flying Norwegian Airlines can be considered a natural choice, and I did fly with Norwegian a few times, but will never do it again. Considering how Norwegian Airlines treat their customers and employees, I would feel guilty if I let the company have a Cent of my money. As a matter of fact, I deeply regret having flown with Norwegian Airlines and thereby having supported that terrible company financially. I look forward to the day Norwegian Airlines seizes to exist and hope the employees will get jobs in decent companies instead. That said, I’m not surprised to learn that Norwegian Airlines illegally used a plane that wasn’t airworthy.
I would only describe the conduct of the managers who allowed that plane fly as utterly criminal. The sentences were far too light given the loss of life involved.
As a former commercial pilot, I agree with you however, it is ultimately the responsibility of the Captain to make sure all the maintenance is done that has been recorded in the log book before he accepts the aircraft. There are "go - no go" items for every aircraft. ie, minimum equipment list. Now if snags are not recorded or forged, that is a different matter.
Yeah same old story, if it robbery that all is very bad, mostly with deaths, but if its "Busine$$" than its a different story even with over 50 human lives.... not even a year per person. One thing breaking the rules on a save easy erea for a while but in those primitive conditions in Mountain area is just not forgivable. Been family I would of broken his neck.
welcome to turkey where husbands can assault or even murder their wives for petty shit and serve only 3 years if they're unlucky! Turkey: where human life is cheap en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_(singer)#Nitric_acid_attack
Such a tragic and needless crash. The declaration from the company management after the crash was telling of their criminal negligence. Rest their souls. The sentences were inadequate.
11 years is a long time. nothing can make up for the damage they caused, but keeping someone in prison for over 12 years starts to get pointless as a punishment
I'd like to see the CEO's punishment after saying it was pilot error being learning how to fly and then putting him into another plane with a faulty EGPWS and telling him land the same runway with a plane that's working "perfectly fine".
Airline is 100 percent at fault, i believe the pilots didnt use the automatic flight thing because of all the faulty sensors like the terrain warning sensor and stuff, how can you rely on a airplane to fly off false data being fed by faulty sensors its dangerous, they did right thing by flying manually unfortunately a mistake was made. Its like a trying to drive a car with a faulty distance sensor and using the keep distance feature on automated cruise control and because the sensor is faulty it will go into the back of someone elses car, you wont use it if you know its faulty
This was an incredibly tragic accident. I was 6 years old when it happened but I still remember the news. Most tragic of all is that this accident might be a sabotage. There were 6 very qualified scientists who were working on nuclear energy and they were really important for Turkish nuclear energy sector since there aren't really much people working on that. Additionally, these scientists were going to a conference about nuclear physics in Isparta's university.
That seems suspicious. It is hard to wrap our minds around the fact that there are groups of elites around the world who do terrible things to achieve their goals.
Gosh, an absolute litany of serious issues all round - plus an element of "bad luck" that they flew 30degrees off. That being said, if ever an airline/aircraft combo could ever be said to be an "accident waiting to happen", this is it. If it hadn't been then, there seems a good chance it would have been at some future point.... My other observation was of the startling fact revealed by the investigation that the tail had struck first! Truly, truly terrifying. In amongst the wider issues about the plane, the airline, the crew's experience/background and the flight/terrain/weather, I suppose it is for the best that the agonising last few seconds are left to the imagination. Sounds like there was about 15 seconds where they nosed up as hard as possible and presumably added max power but with the spool up time, while the ridge was cleared initially, it wasn't enough. My God, the tremendous jolt everyone on board would have experienced as the empennage struck and the lurch to the ground. I shiver. RIP to all those poor souls on board. Whilst it doesn't bring them back, I was relieved to hear for once that those responsible were hit hard. I don't know what it is about justice these days, but there seems an increasing tendency for the axe to fall hardest on the easiest targets - motorists given such byzantine road regulations to follow, they will inevitably fall foul, the resultant fines effectively amounting to an unfair additional road tax. Whilst those who mismanage government departments, retire with a fat pension and a seat in the House of Lords. Speaking of, the only penalty Fred Goodwin suffered having driven the Royal Bank of Scotland into the ground, was losing his knighthood. Far from being fined, having caused the bank to suffer losses if over £24billion in 2008, he had the hubris to take several million pounds as a golden goodbye from his pension fund and even dared argue the toss regarding his annual pension which, until a deal was struck after the uproar at the original annual figure of £700,000 caused that number to be halved. Still, it does rather demonstrate the forces at work, hence my point at feeling for once, the authorities actually had the teeth to go for a prosecution and conduct it to its successful conclusion. Not just in the airline industry, my feeling is that generally these people get away with horrendous crimes - just because they don't go round wielding an axe literally slaughtering people in a blood spattered frenzy, the net result of their callous actions is the same. ... it would be good to hear of other instances where the top people in charge have been rightly accused and dealt with accordingly.....
I had a great A&P instructor had a motto.... Never Fly a Foreign Airline, never. His stories about how aircraft are maintained.... Classic example here. Your detail, your content, always I look forward to each week. Thank you!
@@MiniAirCrashInvestigation can you do a video on the Aer Lingus esker Rock incident please. Being Irish it would mean a lot to me. Thank you my friend. 🍀🍀🍀🍀👍👍👍👍
Great job with this crash report. Your narration really shines. And, to your credit you don't ruin the narration with background music as more and more YT channel hosts are doing when they are telling us about stuff.
Oh it's light for you huh? People we going crazy because they were locked up for couple of months during the pandemic (in their own homes that is). 11 years is a very long time. Yes they deserved it but it's by no means a light sentence.
@@Benderrr111 I am sure that for you 11 years is long time. But I got a question for you. How would you feel if one of the lost souls on that flight was someone close to you? I can say for me. It is light sentence. If someone was close to me.
Yes sure, the airline is as shady as can be and they broke a lot of rules. However, the failure of the GPWS was only the final link in the chain. When you have a crew, that is unable to fly a standard published approach without a 30° error on the outbound leg AND totally screw up the Proceedure Turn (45/180 in this case), than there is simply nothing to save this plane. Just to clarify: After they tracked the 225 Radial outbound until a distance of 13.7 nm they were supposed to turn south, keep that heading for 60 seconds and then do a righthand 180° turn to the north, until they intercept the localizer. What they did is to track the wrong radial outbound with an error of 30° towards the mountains. Then they just turned right, away from the approach course and waited to intercept it, wich of course could never happen. It would have been nice to have the CVR, to listen to their approach briefing, but yeah... To sum it up, yes, it was a shitty airline, but with an averagely trained crew and decent CRM this accident would not have happened.
100% agree. Root cause, crew could not read an approach plate, brief the headings /tracks to be followed. they would have killed themselves in a single engine plane with basic VOR equipment. Flying such an approach is a basic requirement in an IFR check ride to obtain an instrument rating. All the other factors are contributing, and for sure the airline deserves blame for the inoperative equipment. As a corporate jet pilot flying all over the world, many of the airports I flew into , I had never been to before, but as PIC I had to read the approach plates, and fly the approach accordingly.
Thank you! I was looking for this comment in the hope I could escape having to address this issue. 30° a small error? Never. That’s a massive miss and a complete lack of competency on display.
Agreed. It was still pilot error. Yes, a lot of contributing factors involved, such as the faulty plane, and lack of training, but ultimately this was still a controlled flight into terrain.
Putting aside the problems and failures that set this crew up for disaster, a competent crew would have had no problems doing this approach correctly. I spent almost twenty years flying in the mountains of NW British Columbia in a basic B737 200. This airplane had no automation other than being able to fly radio approaches where available. Nearly all our flying was by hand using basic instrumentation, which sharpened our situational awareness because there was no map display - other than that we created in our heads. Without practice, this is a skill quickly lost.
Not to mention even when off course, if they kept the published on course altitudes (not even the MSA) they would have not crashed! Outbound they should be above 10kft and inbound 6400 only at the faf. The mountain was at 6200ft.
On the other hand, there were 6 very important scientists on this plane. They were working on thorium and they were on their way to give a conference in Isparta. In addition, these scientists were receiving threats for their work. In fact, this plane crash may have been an assassination on them.
Thanks! Retired US MD here - I love your channel, voice and narration style. I love to fly, but wish I had had the visual acuity and courage to be a pilot, but not to be. Wonderful videos and narration. Thank you!!!! 👍🏻🛬❗️❗️Dr. J.
To make everything creepier... There were 5 scientist in that plane. They were working on a project. One of these scientist was the head of the project in Turkey, Engin Arık. They were going to a conferance, this is why they were on that plane. It might seems like a coincidence but another professor who was working in the same project, Engin Işıksal died shortly after the crash. He was a friend of my father and we heard his death from people we knew. In news, it was said that he was died from a heart attack but instead of a heart attack, he showed symptoms of poisoning but I don't know every detail and total reality of the cause of death. But in some news, it is written that he died because of unknown reason. Plus, this is more like a gossip than a fact, people were dead before the plane crashed into mountains because of lack of oxygen.
This is the type of crash where you want to see the leader of your country publicly shame the airline & those involved by reading the report or at least it's summary in a press conference.
A bit of context for those interested. This incident was, and still is considered by many in Turkey as sabotage / deliberate murder. Among the passengers were 6 nuclear scientists, two of which were very prominent figures in Turkish atomics and nuclear physics. They were working on building the Turkish particle accelerator, integrating with CERN and much more stuff related to Turkish nuclear energy program. At the time, Turkey was looking into building 3 nuclear energy facilities with the help of foreign partners. One of the scientists aboard, Prof. Engin Arik was pushing for thorium reactors for their less nuclear waste, lower chances of weaponization and higher efficiency + the abundance of thorium deposits in Turkey. This did not go well with the potential partners of course, who would in theory not only build the reactors, but also supply the nuclear fuel and manage the waste. On Jan 2007, the govt introduced a detailed law about the proposed nuclear stations, but it was vetoed by President Sezer, who was anti-Erdogan. At the end of August 2007, President Sezer finished his term and got replaced by President Gul, who was a close friend of PM Erdogan. Subsequently, another law was passed on Nov 21, 2007 regarding the matter, stating that the cabinet had a month to decide on the specifics of the nuclear power stations (the law included almost no specifics on the power plants). 9 days later, this crash happened, killing those 6 scientists who were becoming very vocal about the issue. Afterwards, it was decided to build 2 facilities, one with French & Japanese - which got cancelled due to costs overbudget, the other with Russia, a country with impeccable nuclear records, - which is still ongoing to the dismay of all local population (see Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant). The airline at the time was not usually seen as a death ticket operator, they didn't have a bad reputation as far as my memory serves me. However, the blatant lies, total disregard for safety procedures, the timing of the equipment failures and pilot assignments made, and still makes the case very, very suspicious. A large portion of the society, along with a number of parliament members sought for a more detailed investigation covering those included in the planning and operation of the flight, with an espionage angle; but all those petitions were disregarded by the government (who is still in power today).
@@DemPilafian aside the fact that your statement holds true as a principle, to be honest no one really felt / feels like this airline had anything to do with nation / national sentiments. If that were the Turkish Airlines (semi-public national airliner) that would've had more common ground with your comment i guess. And those scientists were not in any kind of situation that the state had to ensure their safety, thus their deaths wouldn't bring any shame or humiliation. The proposed investigation actually was the cure for the conspiracies - it would shed light whether there was any truth in those suspicions or not. Sadly, it was denied. So, those suspicions / conspiracy theories still linger. And to add fuel to the fire, Turkey's recent history is filled with such dark deals. Anyone who speaks against the interests of those with power disappears somehow - be it by death, imprisonment or defamation. So, to the public eye, one more such incident is not out of the ordinary, regardless of how hard it would've been to actually facilitate such a conspiracy.
The reason the pilots likely tried to climb was because the EGPWS was seemingly operational at the time of the crash. The audio interface was the only thing that was reported broken. They probably noticed a warning lamp illuminate since, I think they function independently.
I remember the news. 3 people from the Physics department at Bogazici University is killed in this accident. I was a student back then at Bogazici University and know the professor Engin Arik who is killed in this accident. She was working on the Atlas Experiment at Cern. They were on the way for a conference at Isparta.
Emergency services arrived 4.5 hours after crash. Cvr recording stopped 9 minutes after take-off. 6 scientists that are leading torium research which would end energy dependence of Turkey were in plane. So it's not that amazing that no one survived. This crash was a plan.
Rest in Peace to all those who lost their lives. I would hope that this was the last ever flight for that airline before they were decertified. [if they ever were]. I wonder if the maintenance chief was a willing participant, or afraid of losing his job should he blow the whistle. It is sad that people had to die over someone ELSE'S incompetence.
Prison is just the right place for those cost-cutting execs. 11 years isn’t long enough for the CEO who made the statement about the pilot error before an investigation could even get underway! Tragic.
Hey Mini, I love your work. Can you please cover the cause of the two crashes that caused Boeing to ground its entire 737 Max fleet in 2019 and have to pay out around 2.5 billion dollars in compensation 🙏
Yikes, the company sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch: Well we have rules (but nobody follows them), if a fault occurs that would ground the plane it must be fixed within 3 days (so we just don't write down when the fault occured)...
Crazy, just crazy. Letting a plane fly for over a week without a working EGPWS, which is supposed to be the last standing ground in case of such mistakes.
When you hear about the 86 mistakes that were made during the previous 235 flights, you start getting an image of the many narrow-misses that probably occurred during other flights
@@anacabral873 Well, the plane was functional insofar as it was probably showing their correct heading. If they only flew a heading of 223 degrees like they were told to then it would have lined them up perfectly for their final approach to the runway. But they flew a heading of 253 degrees instead??? Big difference! I assume the instrument that shows their heading was working properly. It was the ground proximity warning equipment that wasn't working properly. This would have warned them that they were about to fly into the side of a mountain. But they should never have been near that mountain in the first place. For me, it's 90% pilot error. They had the most to lose after all.. their lives and the lives of all their passengers. The owners and operators of the plane lost a few years in jail 🤔
Have you considered doing a video about Invicta Airlines flight 435 which crashed near Basel, Switzerland in 1973? Like AtlasJet 4203 it flew into a mountain in an area where the aircraft should not have been. The Swiss investigation blamed the pilots. They were both dead and the aircraft didn't have a CVR so they were easy targets. The training record for one pilot was dubious but the other one held a Master Green Ticket from the RAF and was highly regarded. Subsequent investigation by a journalist called John Godson and a KLM pilot called Jan Bartelski showed that there were serious problems with the navigational aids at Basel and the performance of ATC at the time of the accident had been very poor. The Swiss investigators had been given a lot of important information by a French pilot called Leluc but had ignored it and pinned the blame on the Invicta pilots as a cover up. It's a fascinating case made all the more tragic by the fact that most of the victims were women on a day trip and 55 children lost their mothers. (The Wikipedia article on the accident just repeats the Swiss report and doesn't tell the whole story).
On the 3Oth of November 2007, an Atlas jet MD83 was on the ground an Istanbul's Ataturk airport bound for Isparta airport. The flight had 50 passengers and 7 crew members on board. The MD83 that they were flying that day had only been inducted into the AtlasJet fleet just 5 months ago, and it had been manufactured in 1994. The plane had served with a whole host of operators with the likes of Reno Air, American Airlines, Turkish carrier Freebird AIrlines and Turkish Airlines. The flight's First Officer was new to the flight deck of the MD83. He was part of the Turkish Airforce but as of the 20th November, he had only accumulated 14 hours on the MD83; well below 100, the number needed by Turkish regulators. At 12.51am the plane took from Istanbul's Ataturk Airport. As the plane climbed into the inky black sky, the pilots put the plane on course for Isparta. The flight was expected to take an hour and 25 minutes so I don't think anybody on board had time to get comfortable. Soon they were in contact with the controllers at Isparta. Now, Isparta is not a big airport so it did not have the facilities that a larger airport might have have, like an ILS or an instrument landing system which guides planes right down to the runway. Instead the pilots had to use radio beacons known as BOR's to navigate to the airport. Once the pilots were over the BOR at Isparta, they'd then have to let the controller know when they were turning inbound towards the runway. After the plane overflew the airport, it headed away from the runway to line up with the runway. 1.50 After a few minutes the controller got confirmation that the pilots were turning inbound towards the runway. They were 18 kilometers or 11 miles away from the airport. At the rate things were going, flight 4203 should be on the ground in near minutes. But the controller did not hear back from flight 4203. The landing time for flight 4203 came and went. but there was no plane. The controller was trying to raise the plane on radio but no reply came through. The controller got in touch with other planes in the area to try and get them to spot the missing MD83. But that did not work as well. The night was just too dark. Immediately search and rescue teams were sent out into the night to try and find the missing plane. But the darkness and the mountainous terrain made things vert difficult. The Turkish Airforce even sent out a helicopter equipped with a thermal camera camera to try and find the missing jet. At 6am the helicopter came upon the crash site of flight 4203. None of the 57 people onboard survived. As with all crashes, the discovery of the wreck was immediately followed up by a barrage of news interviews. But the really weird thing aout this crash was the statement made by the CEO of Atlas Jet right after the crash. In his press conference he said: "The accident was caused by pilot error. There was no technical fault with the aircraft." Is it just me (?) or does that seem a bit weird, like no one knows the reason for the crash hours after the wreck has been found....and here is the CEO 'throwing the pilots under the bus'. To find out the actual reason for the crash, 4 investigators were sent to the crash site. The crash site was spread over a relatively large area of 5000 square meters or 54000 square feet. They examined the wreck and the engines seemed to be working and the plane was configured correctly. But the very interesting thing, and the investigators' first clue was the location of the crash itself.
Government regulation and oversight is the #1 most important factor in the safety of the airline industry. Without robust enforcement, companies cut corners which costs lives.
I too like many here I suspect think that it is quite strange to hear an airline CEO straight up more or less tell the world in his eyes he has already drawn a conclusion. Interesting tactic.
Ultimately the Captain is responsible their aircraft. One of the sad realities is that being responsible and being in control or at fault are often different things.
suggestion: airports surrounded by mountain, MAYBE with the really cheap to operate and REALLY bright LED types lite *why not put them at the high points and along ridges of the mountains?*
There was no mention of RAPCON at Isparta; was there any flight following available for the approach? Seems to me a RAPCON would've seen the course deviation on the reciprocal heading prior to the turn for final.
Thx for the educational video. Clearly, the company was hiding their involvement in this tragedy. A couple words, though: "...spread over a relatively large area...54000 sq ft..." I'm sorry, but 54000 sq ft is just shy of 1.25 acres. As far as crash sites go, that is a very small area even more so considering the large size and likely speed of the aircraft. For proportion, an acre is approx. 200 feet by 200 feet. The airplane in this situation was itself 150 feet by 110 feet... "...result of perfect confluence of mistakes..." No, sorry. That is not the way to describe it. It is a confluence of negligence...criminal negligence.
There are also many Conspiracy Theories involving this Crash. Since rthere was a World known Scientiest on deck Prof.Dr. Engin Arık and his Team. God bless them
Reminds me of the guy that police visited when questioning everyone in the area. ‘No way man, I didn’t rape or murder any woman I’d never do such a thing’. No prizes for guessing how that ended.
There were mitigating factors obviously but the primary reason for the accident was the pilot’s inability to properly navigate on the outbound leg. The EGPWS might have prevented the accident but it is not what caused the airplane to stray off course. The approach used to illustrate WAS an ILS approach so perhaps the GS was out of service. Either way, the lack of a GS had nothing to do with the crash. Blaming the EGPWS for the crash is like blaming a faulty parachute after the pilot gets his airplane in an unrecoverable spin.
Controlled Flight Into Terrain is always and can only ever be pilot error. The other items in the chain are primarily redundancy controls that were not operating sadly. But you should be able to fly your plane accurately at all times...if you want to avoid a pilot error incident
I hold a USA private pilot certificate. I have done enough instrument training to take the flight test for instrument rating. I have to say "pilot error". In small planes, I never had GPWS or FMS. I would have recognized this Isparta approach as moderately dangerous in my prefight prep. Not as dangerous as Roanoke, Virginia which requires turning and climbing after a missed approach. Rather a narrow valley requiring meticulous attention to course (as opposed to heading, which varies with crosswind). You didn't mention if the VOR receiver in use had the correct radial dialed in on the OBS (Omni bearing selector). If the course had been selected correctly, the crew would have seen a big needle displacement being 30° off course. Sure, correctly programming the FMS or a GPWS warning would have led to a different outcome. But flying a course 30° off in a narrow valley is a waiting disaster.
The approach plate which you repeated display depicts a LOC-DME approach. The localizer is the horizontal component of an ILS. If I were flying the approach you depict, I would have used the localizer back-course for the outbound leg, with the VOR radial on the second NAV receiver as cross-check. That way, even if I made a mistake and dialed in the wrong radial on the OBS, the discrepancy between the VOR and the localizer would alert me to the fact that there was some problem. IMHO, when a localizer signal is present, it's a pilot error not to use it as part of the navigation. Also, it appears they made the procedure turn in the wrong direction, another pilot error. As with all aviation accidents, it's never a single problem which brings down an aircraft, there is a chain of problems. While the aircraft systems problems contributed to this accident, they did not prevent the pilots from executing the approach as depicted. If the pilots had not made the mistake of not cross-checking the VOR against the localizer, they would have discovered their bearing error and remained on the proper course.
Good points. It doesn't seem like they were even tracking the back course.. Otherwise they would know they were on the wrong heading.. The cdi needle would be deflected. Also outbound they should be at 7000msl and above the highest terrain in the area. It was pilot error.. Assuming they had the same approach plates. Of course with the cvr and fdr inop.. It becomes easier to blame them.
Yes. Pilot error is absolutely, unequivocally, a factor. Those pilots knew that they were not legally qualified to fly that plane, and yet they did it anyway. Yes, the company is absolutely at fault, even more-so than the pilots. But they should never have breached their own personal duties as pilots, which includes respecting proper training protocols. They basically drove a car without a license. It doesn’t matter if the company allowed (or even pushed) you to do it. You still have a personal legal responsibility not to drive that car. They’re both at fault, company and pilots.
Nice to hear the tightarsed big wigs involved actually got punished for their negligence. So many get away with it, hiding behind the corporate veil. A slap on the wrist, a fine does nothing to impart personal responsibility for the people whose lives are in their hands.
Well, as an ret. ATP I tend to rate this accident's cause as pilot error, since flying an outbound leg 30 degrees off IS a pilot error ant must not happen. But this would not do justice to the pilots at all. Rightly so, this criminal bunch of airline managers were sent to prison. It's them who killed all those passengers and crew.
The CEO knew it was pilot error because he didn't train the pilot, he made the mechanics not follow the rules so the pilot would have no idea what to do, and he sent the pilot into a situation above his skill grade. The pilot error was not standing up to the asshole running the company and flying a plane without autopilot.
The captain didn't do almost any he was supposed to. He should of been fired on the spot Now the first officer is the hero of the day,he did his work and the captains work. The captain was supposed to order other people to do stuff,but he told the first officer to fly and talk on the radio and everything else. Way he talked to people,when he should of been handling the plane. He's someone who needs a lot more training. I believe he should at the least be grounded till he learns how to delegate his crew.
You definitely know something's wrong when someone claims to know the exact cause immediately after (or even during) an incident. Governments and politicians use this tactic all the time!
Like Lee Harvey Oswald and his entire life revealed by the honest U.S. press within 45 minutes of JFK's murder.
Sort of like that incident in Sept 2001. They KNEW who did it within hours. 🤷♂️
Like 911 or COViD coming from bats
The gun strolled out of it's safe, climbed into someone's hand and coerced it to chamber a round before squeezing the trigger. The things guns are capable of...
Almost as often as tinfoil-hatted conspiracy “theorists” do!
A retired NTSB asked said about Delta 191: "Did the crew do the wrong thing?" Yes, because they crashed but if I ask "Did the crew act appropriately based on the information available at that time?" Yes - their actions were correct.
It's disgusting the way 'managers' and interested parties continue to dump on the flight crew ("pilot error") to cover up their own incompetence/greed.
i mean in this case if you think about they're not wrong...the plane was so broken the pilots had to fly it manually. so it crash because the pilots errored
The pilots and crews are the easiest party to blame as they're not here anymore to defend themselves. It's cheap and dirty and they do it all the time. Both aircraft and carrier companies do this.
Well, the regulations are written so that regardless of what happens, it's going to be the Pilot in Command's fault! FAR 91.3 is evident; it's not subject to interpretation like other regulations as a retired professional pilot. From day one, I accepted that if anything went wrong, I would be blamed, whether I was in control or not. People make mistakes, and that is a given. The hardest thing I had to learn about flying was when to say no, I would not do that. It also comes with a cost when you do say no.
Wow. I am from Isparta but grew up in the neighboring city Antalya. I have a lot of relatives in Ispanta. Two of my close relatives were in that flight. They were coming back from visiting their son who qas a lawyer in Istanbul. He called my father who was a medical doctor in Antalya, saying that he cannot reach his parents. Next day my father was at the hospital in Isparta identifing them. It was horrible.
Also, there is a conspirisy going on about this accident. Apearently there were scientist who were working on a project with thorium in the flight. Their laptops were not recovered from the wreck.
About the company, it survived this accident but not for long. They renamed it to Atlas Global. It did not saved them too, it is now bankruped.
Fuck that's a living nightmare
Good to hear that the airline are bankruped. Natural selection do it job good. Sorry for your relatives lost though.
You can't NOT TRAIN someone and then blame them for an "error". This was wholly on the company.
It would be like blaming a math test for the students failing a language exam.
The CEO’s statement just few hours after the accident pretty much confirms that he’s a person with total absence of integrity, decency and moral. A despicable person that should stay in jail for life for the murder of the crew and the passengers.
The only CEO of an airline that I ever really trusted was Niki Lauda. And he is no longer with us of course. I agree with your assessment completely.
@@roderickcampbell2105 yep! ck out how Boeing denied culpability in the crash of Lauda Air 004...bury the truth with the dead.
The fact he made that statement should have immediately caused the crowd to swarm him and gut him alive, killing him right then and there. If humans reacted to evil in that way more often. People wouldn't be so easy to do and act in such wrong manners.
Did you know that "CEO" is the profession with the highest amount of sociopaths? Pure coincidence, I assume.
In the USA, that would be 57 counts of negligent homicide, and if I were the judge I'd be inclined to give that CHEAT a year per death, with at least half that amount of time for those who helped him command the cover-up.
THAT SAID, most of us have badly skewed perceptions of how long time in prison is... 11 years is a full serving of justice. Even when one serving FEELS inadequate.
Flew on this very aircraft, TC-AKM, then in World Focus livery, just a few months prior, summer of 2007. Then a wet lease for Norwegian.
I ended up doing something I haven’t done before or since. I took a picture of the registration to be sure I never boarded that aircraft again. One thing was the state of the cabin which was… well worn to say the least. That aircraft hadn’t seen a qualified tech in a long time. But much worse: we were perilously close to a CFIT on approach to Dubrovnik in broad daylight! I was looking UP at the airport on base, then 2 seconds later TOGA thrust but no go-around, resulting in a steep, violent turn and landing. I was shaking, almost crying. When this accident happened, Norwegian denied having used them. That upset me so much I sent my photo to the newspaper. Much backtracking from Norwegian ensued.
Wow that's absolutely crazy considering the mountains around Dubrovnik as well. I think you were very lucky it was in daylight with good visibility, at night you might've crashed. If I remember there was even another crash at Dubrovnik where a plane of diplomats slammed into a mountain due to disorientation.
@@tumslucks9781 This was a wet lease with the turkish crew. Might have been the accident crew for all I know. It wasn’t a huge MD operation.
@@ernestcarpentier I think that was a US military flight, I may have seen it reported here on youtube.
As a Norwegian living in Munich, flying Norwegian Airlines can be considered a natural choice, and I did fly with Norwegian a few times, but will never do it again. Considering how Norwegian Airlines treat their customers and employees, I would feel guilty if I let the company have a Cent of my money. As a matter of fact, I deeply regret having flown with Norwegian Airlines and thereby having supported that terrible company financially. I look forward to the day Norwegian Airlines seizes to exist and hope the employees will get jobs in decent companies instead. That said, I’m not surprised to learn that Norwegian Airlines illegally used a plane that wasn’t airworthy.
@@tumslucks9781 very interesting racist comment .
I would only describe the conduct of the managers who allowed that plane fly as utterly criminal. The sentences were far too light given the loss of life involved.
DEATH SENTENCE only. They earned it.
As a former commercial pilot, I agree with you however, it is ultimately the responsibility of the Captain to make sure all the maintenance is done that has been recorded in the log book before he accepts the aircraft. There are "go - no go" items for every aircraft. ie, minimum equipment list. Now if snags are not recorded or forged, that is a different matter.
Yeah same old story, if it robbery that all is very bad, mostly with deaths, but if its "Busine$$" than its a different story even with over 50 human lives.... not even a year per person. One thing breaking the rules on a save easy erea for a while but in those primitive conditions in Mountain area is just not forgivable. Been family I would of broken his neck.
Hopefully, this company is no longer in business.
Fifty seven years for each death has a ring to it……..
welcome to turkey where husbands can assault or even murder their wives for petty shit and serve only 3 years if they're unlucky! Turkey: where human life is cheap en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_(singer)#Nitric_acid_attack
Such a tragic and needless crash. The declaration from the company management after the crash was telling of their criminal negligence. Rest their souls. The sentences were inadequate.
11 years is a long time. nothing can make up for the damage they caused, but keeping someone in prison for over 12 years starts to get pointless as a punishment
Typical airline management
I'd like to see the CEO's punishment after saying it was pilot error being learning how to fly and then putting him into another plane with a faulty EGPWS and telling him land the same runway with a plane that's working "perfectly fine".
I looked it up. He was sentenced 14 years of prison.
Jigsaw would be proud of that
Airline is 100 percent at fault, i believe the pilots didnt use the automatic flight thing because of all the faulty sensors like the terrain warning sensor and stuff, how can you rely on a airplane to fly off false data being fed by faulty sensors its dangerous, they did right thing by flying manually unfortunately a mistake was made. Its like a trying to drive a car with a faulty distance sensor and using the keep distance feature on automated cruise control and because the sensor is faulty it will go into the back of someone elses car, you wont use it if you know its faulty
This was an incredibly tragic accident. I was 6 years old when it happened but I still remember the news. Most tragic of all is that this accident might be a sabotage. There were 6 very qualified scientists who were working on nuclear energy and they were really important for Turkish nuclear energy sector since there aren't really much people working on that. Additionally, these scientists were going to a conference about nuclear physics in Isparta's university.
That seems suspicious. It is hard to wrap our minds around the fact that there are groups of elites around the world who do terrible things to achieve their goals.
Gosh, an absolute litany of serious issues all round - plus an element of "bad luck" that they flew 30degrees off. That being said, if ever an airline/aircraft combo could ever be said to be an "accident waiting to happen", this is it. If it hadn't been then, there seems a good chance it would have been at some future point....
My other observation was of the startling fact revealed by the investigation that the tail had struck first! Truly, truly terrifying. In amongst the wider issues about the plane, the airline, the crew's experience/background and the flight/terrain/weather, I suppose it is for the best that the agonising last few seconds are left to the imagination. Sounds like there was about 15 seconds where they nosed up as hard as possible and presumably added max power but with the spool up time, while the ridge was cleared initially, it wasn't enough. My God, the tremendous jolt everyone on board would have experienced as the empennage struck and the lurch to the ground. I shiver. RIP to all those poor souls on board.
Whilst it doesn't bring them back, I was relieved to hear for once that those responsible were hit hard. I don't know what it is about justice these days, but there seems an increasing tendency for the axe to fall hardest on the easiest targets - motorists given such byzantine road regulations to follow, they will inevitably fall foul, the resultant fines effectively amounting to an unfair additional road tax. Whilst those who mismanage government departments, retire with a fat pension and a seat in the House of Lords. Speaking of, the only penalty Fred Goodwin suffered having driven the Royal Bank of Scotland into the ground, was losing his knighthood. Far from being fined, having caused the bank to suffer losses if over £24billion in 2008, he had the hubris to take several million pounds as a golden goodbye from his pension fund and even dared argue the toss regarding his annual pension which, until a deal was struck after the uproar at the original annual figure of £700,000 caused that number to be halved. Still, it does rather demonstrate the forces at work, hence my point at feeling for once, the authorities actually had the teeth to go for a prosecution and conduct it to its successful conclusion.
Not just in the airline industry, my feeling is that generally these people get away with horrendous crimes - just because they don't go round wielding an axe literally slaughtering people in a blood spattered frenzy, the net result of their callous actions is the same. ... it would be good to hear of other instances where the top people in charge have been rightly accused and dealt with accordingly.....
I had a great A&P instructor had a motto.... Never Fly a Foreign Airline, never. His stories about how aircraft are maintained.... Classic example here. Your detail, your content, always I look forward to each week. Thank you!
What, then, of Lufthansa?
I'd guess the pilots were hand-flying because they didn't trust any automation on this obviously neglected aircraft.
Just made my morning! Always love when you have new content. Thanks so much for the great work that you do!! 👊🏻✈️
Thank you!
@@MiniAirCrashInvestigation can you do a video on the Aer Lingus esker Rock incident please. Being Irish it would mean a lot to me.
Thank you my friend. 🍀🍀🍀🍀👍👍👍👍
Agreed. I’ve been a fan of this channel for years.
Great job with this crash report. Your narration really shines. And, to your credit you don't ruin the narration with background music as more and more YT channel hosts are doing when they are telling us about stuff.
Also, he takes the time to give the videos a human voice. Too many of them are either text alone or a computer voice. Instant no from me.
Absolutely the airline is at fault here. The sentence is too light for me.
Oh it's light for you huh? People we going crazy because they were locked up for couple of months during the pandemic (in their own homes that is). 11 years is a very long time. Yes they deserved it but it's by no means a light sentence.
@@Benderrr111 I am sure that for you 11 years is long time. But I got a question for you. How would you feel if one of the lost souls on that flight was someone close to you? I can say for me. It is light sentence. If someone was close to me.
Yes sure, the airline is as shady as can be and they broke a lot of rules. However, the failure of the GPWS was only the final link in the chain. When you have a crew, that is unable to fly a standard published approach without a 30° error on the outbound leg AND totally screw up the Proceedure Turn (45/180 in this case), than there is simply nothing to save this plane.
Just to clarify: After they tracked the 225 Radial outbound until a distance of 13.7 nm they were supposed to turn south, keep that heading for 60 seconds and then do a righthand 180° turn to the north, until they intercept the localizer.
What they did is to track the wrong radial outbound with an error of 30° towards the mountains. Then they just turned right, away from the approach course and waited to intercept it, wich of course could never happen.
It would have been nice to have the CVR, to listen to their approach briefing, but yeah...
To sum it up, yes, it was a shitty airline, but with an averagely trained crew and decent CRM this accident would not have happened.
100% agree. Root cause, crew could not read an approach plate, brief the headings /tracks to be followed. they would have killed themselves in a single engine plane with basic VOR equipment. Flying such an approach is a basic requirement in an IFR check ride to obtain an instrument rating. All the other factors are contributing, and for sure the airline deserves blame for the inoperative equipment.
As a corporate jet pilot flying all over the world, many of the airports I flew into , I had never been to before, but as PIC I had to read the approach plates, and fly the approach accordingly.
Thank you! I was looking for this comment in the hope I could escape having to address this issue. 30° a small error? Never. That’s a massive miss and a complete lack of competency on display.
Agreed. It was still pilot error. Yes, a lot of contributing factors involved, such as the faulty plane, and lack of training, but ultimately this was still a controlled flight into terrain.
Putting aside the problems and failures that set this crew up for disaster, a competent crew would have had no problems doing this approach correctly. I spent almost twenty years flying in the mountains of NW British Columbia in a basic B737 200. This airplane had no automation other than being able to fly radio approaches where available. Nearly all our flying was by hand using basic instrumentation, which sharpened our situational awareness because there was no map display - other than that we created in our heads. Without practice, this is a skill quickly lost.
Not to mention even when off course, if they kept the published on course altitudes (not even the MSA) they would have not crashed! Outbound they should be above 10kft and inbound 6400 only at the faf. The mountain was at 6200ft.
On the other hand, there were 6 very important scientists on this plane. They were working on thorium and they were on their way to give a conference in Isparta. In addition, these scientists were receiving threats for their work. In fact, this plane crash may have been an assassination on them.
Thanks! Retired US MD here - I love your channel, voice and narration style. I love to fly, but wish I had had the visual acuity and courage to be a pilot, but not to be. Wonderful videos and narration. Thank you!!!! 👍🏻🛬❗️❗️Dr. J.
To make everything creepier...
There were 5 scientist in that plane. They were working on a project. One of these scientist was the head of the project in Turkey, Engin Arık. They were going to a conferance, this is why they were on that plane.
It might seems like a coincidence but another professor who was working in the same project, Engin Işıksal died shortly after the crash. He was a friend of my father and we heard his death from people we knew. In news, it was said that he was died from a heart attack but instead of a heart attack, he showed symptoms of poisoning but I don't know every detail and total reality of the cause of death. But in some news, it is written that he died because of unknown reason.
Plus, this is more like a gossip than a fact, people were dead before the plane crashed into mountains because of lack of oxygen.
This is the type of crash where you want to see the leader of your country publicly shame the airline & those involved by reading the report or at least it's summary in a press conference.
I flew with that Airline in 2006, while on vacation (I think it was an Airbus 320) - no issues, had good service out to Antalya and back to Istanbul.
Good job again! Deepest condolences to everyone perish.
A bit of context for those interested.
This incident was, and still is considered by many in Turkey as sabotage / deliberate murder. Among the passengers were 6 nuclear scientists, two of which were very prominent figures in Turkish atomics and nuclear physics. They were working on building the Turkish particle accelerator, integrating with CERN and much more stuff related to Turkish nuclear energy program. At the time, Turkey was looking into building 3 nuclear energy facilities with the help of foreign partners. One of the scientists aboard, Prof. Engin Arik was pushing for thorium reactors for their less nuclear waste, lower chances of weaponization and higher efficiency + the abundance of thorium deposits in Turkey. This did not go well with the potential partners of course, who would in theory not only build the reactors, but also supply the nuclear fuel and manage the waste.
On Jan 2007, the govt introduced a detailed law about the proposed nuclear stations, but it was vetoed by President Sezer, who was anti-Erdogan. At the end of August 2007, President Sezer finished his term and got replaced by President Gul, who was a close friend of PM Erdogan. Subsequently, another law was passed on Nov 21, 2007 regarding the matter, stating that the cabinet had a month to decide on the specifics of the nuclear power stations (the law included almost no specifics on the power plants). 9 days later, this crash happened, killing those 6 scientists who were becoming very vocal about the issue. Afterwards, it was decided to build 2 facilities, one with French & Japanese - which got cancelled due to costs overbudget, the other with Russia, a country with impeccable nuclear records, - which is still ongoing to the dismay of all local population (see Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant).
The airline at the time was not usually seen as a death ticket operator, they didn't have a bad reputation as far as my memory serves me. However, the blatant lies, total disregard for safety procedures, the timing of the equipment failures and pilot assignments made, and still makes the case very, very suspicious. A large portion of the society, along with a number of parliament members sought for a more detailed investigation covering those included in the planning and operation of the flight, with an espionage angle; but all those petitions were disregarded by the government (who is still in power today).
Conspiracy theories spread best when the alternative hurts national pride.
@@DemPilafian aside the fact that your statement holds true as a principle, to be honest no one really felt / feels like this airline had anything to do with nation / national sentiments. If that were the Turkish Airlines (semi-public national airliner) that would've had more common ground with your comment i guess. And those scientists were not in any kind of situation that the state had to ensure their safety, thus their deaths wouldn't bring any shame or humiliation. The proposed investigation actually was the cure for the conspiracies - it would shed light whether there was any truth in those suspicions or not. Sadly, it was denied. So, those suspicions / conspiracy theories still linger. And to add fuel to the fire, Turkey's recent history is filled with such dark deals. Anyone who speaks against the interests of those with power disappears somehow - be it by death, imprisonment or defamation. So, to the public eye, one more such incident is not out of the ordinary, regardless of how hard it would've been to actually facilitate such a conspiracy.
The logic of the company: "MEL who? Wings, check. Engines, check. Landing gear, check. Looks like we're good to go."
The reason the pilots likely tried to climb was because the EGPWS was seemingly operational at the time of the crash. The audio interface was the only thing that was reported broken. They probably noticed a warning lamp illuminate since, I think they function independently.
Your contest is impressive, I am glad to hear that those responsible were jailed
Another sad part was the mentioned CEO who told the pilots -- not the write down the malfunctions-- was also an airline pilot.
I remember the news. 3 people from the Physics department at Bogazici University is killed in this accident. I was a student back then at Bogazici University and know the professor Engin Arik who is killed in this accident. She was working on the Atlas Experiment at Cern. They were on the way for a conference at Isparta.
Amazing that no one survived. There was no visible fire and parts of the fuselage looked intact. Just Imagine the g-forces.
yep gforces are bad
Emergency services arrived 4.5 hours after crash. Cvr recording stopped 9 minutes after take-off. 6 scientists that are leading torium research which would end energy dependence of Turkey were in plane.
So it's not that amazing that no one survived. This crash was a plan.
@@arya_shm One day the masks will come off
@@terintiaflavius3349 that crash was joint operation of gulen terrorist organisation and usa & europe
This is also familiar to UTA Flight 141. The company management screwed up with that too.
Excellent episode as always Sir!!!🙏😢🛫
Great content! Keep up the good work man!
That is an average of 2.73 faults per flight for the memory module. That’s absolutely unacceptable.
Pretty sure 86 faults over 235 flights is one fault for every 2.73 flights...
Kevin, please never become a fuel loader 😅
Oops. I had my math switched. Haha. Don’t worry. I will not become a fuel loader. It’s too dirty of a job for me 😂
@@MrNicoJacgot strong gimli glider vibes from these comments ahhaha
The legendary intro: "THES is the story....."
This is a classic organizational event
WOW all your shows are great..MANY THANKS
I am new to this channel. Excellent video & truly amazing graphics. The attention to detail is superb. Ring that bell.
Rest in Peace to all those who lost their lives. I would hope that this was the last ever flight for that airline before they were decertified. [if they ever were]. I wonder if the maintenance chief was a willing participant, or afraid of losing his job should he blow the whistle. It is sad that people had to die over someone ELSE'S incompetence.
I am from Turkey. These fuckers are still operating..
Prison is just the right place for those cost-cutting execs. 11 years isn’t long enough for the CEO who made the statement about the pilot error before an investigation could even get underway! Tragic.
Let me guess, no one in management held accountable...are they ever, it's criminally sickening...and the beat goes on!!!🙏😢🛫
You are upping your game with every video. 👍
Id describe this as a 90/10. 90% criminal negligence on the airlines part, 10% pilot error, as they did make that pretty significant error in heading.
Love your scripts and always think about them when I’m flying
Great video keep em comming!
Thank you!
Hey Mini, I love your work. Can you please cover the cause of the two crashes that caused Boeing to ground its entire 737 Max fleet in 2019 and have to pay out around 2.5 billion dollars in compensation 🙏
Yikes, the company sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch: Well we have rules (but nobody follows them), if a fault occurs that would ground the plane it must be fixed within 3 days (so we just don't write down when the fault occured)...
A lot of accidents can be avoided if GPS like the ones on cellphones can be fitted on airplanes.
30 degrees off on the outbound leg is pilot error
Crazy, just crazy. Letting a plane fly for over a week without a working EGPWS, which is supposed to be the last standing ground in case of such mistakes.
When you hear about the 86 mistakes that were made during the previous 235 flights, you start getting an image of the many narrow-misses that probably occurred during other flights
7:36 A 30° navigational error is no "small mistake".
It will take you a ½ mile off course for every mile you fly forward.
While I agree it's a substantial mistake, I think he meant that accidentaly changing a 2 to a 5 was a small mistake.
@@TheGrejp Yeah, could be. A small mistake resulting in a large error.
I imagine someone said head 225 and they were misheard as head 255, we'll never know as no cockpit recorder.
I blame the pilots. They were off by 30 degrees before lining up for the runway. This error took them into the mountains.
if they had a functional airplane maybe that wouldnt have happened. Not totally their fault. Swiss cheese model
@@anacabral873 Well, the plane was functional insofar as it was probably showing their correct heading. If they only flew a heading of 223 degrees like they were told to then it would have lined them up perfectly for their final approach to the runway. But they flew a heading of 253 degrees instead??? Big difference! I assume the instrument that shows their heading was working properly. It was the ground proximity warning equipment that wasn't working properly. This would have warned them that they were about to fly into the side of a mountain. But they should never have been near that mountain in the first place. For me, it's 90% pilot error. They had the most to lose after all.. their lives and the lives of all their passengers. The owners and operators of the plane lost a few years in jail 🤔
This incident ticks me off, shame on you Atlas Jet!
Love your channel, but I'm heading from O'Hare to SeaTac this afternoon. Think I'll wait until I'm back on the ground before viewing 😉😆✌️
This is beyond an accident. This crosses well into the territory of a crime.
Have you considered doing a video about Invicta Airlines flight 435 which crashed near Basel, Switzerland in 1973? Like AtlasJet 4203 it flew into a mountain in an area where the aircraft should not have been. The Swiss investigation blamed the pilots. They were both dead and the aircraft didn't have a CVR so they were easy targets. The training record for one pilot was dubious but the other one held a Master Green Ticket from the RAF and was highly regarded. Subsequent investigation by a journalist called John Godson and a KLM pilot called Jan Bartelski showed that there were serious problems with the navigational aids at Basel and the performance of ATC at the time of the accident had been very poor. The Swiss investigators had been given a lot of important information by a French pilot called Leluc but had ignored it and pinned the blame on the Invicta pilots as a cover up. It's a fascinating case made all the more tragic by the fact that most of the victims were women on a day trip and 55 children lost their mothers. (The Wikipedia article on the accident just repeats the Swiss report and doesn't tell the whole story).
Welcome to Turkey we will be flying to Istanbul today.
Me: I'll walk!
This plane was like a flying Yugo car.
On the 3Oth of November 2007, an Atlas jet MD83 was on the ground an Istanbul's Ataturk airport bound for Isparta airport. The flight had 50 passengers and 7 crew members on board. The MD83 that they were flying that day had only been inducted into the AtlasJet fleet just 5 months ago, and it had been manufactured in 1994. The plane had served with a whole host of operators with the likes of Reno Air, American Airlines, Turkish carrier Freebird AIrlines and Turkish Airlines. The flight's First Officer was new to the flight deck of the MD83. He was part of the Turkish Airforce but as of the 20th November, he had only accumulated 14 hours on the MD83; well below 100, the number needed by Turkish regulators. At 12.51am the plane took from Istanbul's Ataturk Airport. As the plane climbed into the inky black sky, the pilots put the plane on course for Isparta. The flight was expected to take an hour and 25 minutes so I don't think anybody on board had time to get comfortable. Soon they were in contact with the controllers at Isparta. Now, Isparta is not a big airport so it did not have the facilities that a larger airport might have have, like an ILS or an instrument landing system which guides planes right down to the runway. Instead the pilots had to use radio beacons known as BOR's to navigate to the airport. Once the pilots were over the BOR at Isparta, they'd then have to let the controller know when they were turning inbound towards the runway. After the plane overflew the airport, it headed away from the runway to line up with the runway. 1.50 After a few minutes the controller got confirmation that the pilots were turning inbound towards the runway. They were 18 kilometers or 11 miles away from the airport. At the rate things were going, flight 4203 should be on the ground in near minutes. But the controller did not hear back from flight 4203. The landing time for flight 4203 came and went. but there was no plane. The controller was trying to raise the plane on radio but no reply came through. The controller got in touch with other planes in the area to try and get them to spot the missing MD83. But that did not work as well. The night was just too dark. Immediately search and rescue teams were sent out into the night to try and find the missing plane. But the darkness and the mountainous terrain made things vert difficult. The Turkish Airforce even sent out a helicopter equipped with a thermal camera camera to try and find the missing jet. At 6am the helicopter came upon the crash site of flight 4203. None of the 57 people onboard survived. As with all crashes, the discovery of the wreck was immediately followed up by a barrage of news interviews. But the really weird thing aout this crash was the statement made by the CEO of Atlas Jet right after the crash. In his press conference he said: "The accident was caused by pilot error. There was no technical fault with the aircraft." Is it just me (?) or does that seem a bit weird, like no one knows the reason for the crash hours after the wreck has been found....and here is the CEO 'throwing the pilots under the bus'. To find out the actual reason for the crash, 4 investigators were sent to the crash site. The crash site was spread over a relatively large area of 5000 square meters or 54000 square feet. They examined the wreck and the engines seemed to be working and the plane was configured correctly. But the very interesting thing, and the investigators' first clue was the location of the crash itself.
Government regulation and oversight is the #1 most important factor in the safety of the airline industry. Without robust enforcement, companies cut corners which costs lives.
Boeing has "friends" in the Senate and the Pentagon. Congressional committees pontificate at post mortems.
@@bartsolari5035 You’re right and it’s a problem. Luckily the FAA still exists at least. Too bad they’re understaffed at the moment.
I too like many here I suspect think that it is quite strange to hear an airline CEO straight up more or less tell the world in his eyes he has already drawn a conclusion. Interesting tactic.
*Company's (thumbnail error).
As soon as I read that I cringed. Hope he corrects it.
Ultimately the Captain is responsible their aircraft.
One of the sad realities is that being responsible and being in control or at fault are often different things.
Somebody actually went to jail for this in the corporate world?! I am astounded!
Saw an
MD scooting over yesterday...thought that is a dinosaur.✌️
suggestion: airports surrounded by mountain, MAYBE with the really cheap to operate and REALLY bright LED types lite *why not put them at the high points and along ridges of the mountains?*
There was no mention of RAPCON at Isparta; was there any flight following available for the approach? Seems to me a RAPCON would've seen the course deviation on the reciprocal heading prior to the turn for final.
This murder,or negligent homicide at least.
Thx for the educational video.
Clearly, the company was hiding their involvement in this tragedy.
A couple words, though:
"...spread over a relatively large area...54000 sq ft..."
I'm sorry, but 54000 sq ft is just shy of 1.25 acres. As far as crash sites go, that is a very small area even more so considering the large size and likely speed of the aircraft.
For proportion, an acre is approx. 200 feet by 200 feet.
The airplane in this situation was itself 150 feet by 110 feet...
"...result of perfect confluence of mistakes..."
No, sorry. That is not the way to describe it. It is a confluence of negligence...criminal negligence.
sad story... in something similar with 2006 Slovak Air Force An-24 crash. Pitch dark + permanently broken ground proximity system
In the thumbnail you should use “company’s” as in possession of a company rather than “companies” which is a plural of “company”
This spelling error resulted in the death of 400 passengers 😆
Nice work
There are also many Conspiracy Theories involving this Crash. Since rthere was a World known Scientiest on deck Prof.Dr. Engin Arık and his Team. God bless them
5:17 I believe it's not asking like "Would you pull up, please".
More like telling you to "Pull up" beep beep "Pull up".
Reminds me of the guy that police visited when questioning everyone in the area. ‘No way man, I didn’t rape or murder any woman I’d never do such a thing’. No prizes for guessing how that ended.
For there being only a "remote chance" of one being in an air crash, oddly, there is no shortage of examples of this "rare", "highly-unlikely" mishap.
There were mitigating factors obviously but the primary reason for the accident was the pilot’s inability to properly navigate on the outbound leg. The EGPWS might have prevented the accident but it is not what caused the airplane to stray off course. The approach used to illustrate WAS an ILS approach so perhaps the GS was out of service. Either way, the lack of a GS had nothing to do with the crash. Blaming the EGPWS for the crash is like blaming a faulty parachute after the pilot gets his airplane in an unrecoverable spin.
7:46 that red arrow is more like 233 heading. 253 would be directly at that 6270 peak
The announcement is like when you come in the room and your dog tucks his ears back
Controlled Flight Into Terrain is always and can only ever be pilot error. The other items in the chain are primarily redundancy controls that were not operating sadly. But you should be able to fly your plane accurately at all times...if you want to avoid a pilot error incident
CFIT is not always down to pilots.
I hold a USA private pilot certificate. I have done enough instrument training to take the flight test for instrument rating. I have to say "pilot error". In small planes, I never had GPWS or FMS. I would have recognized this Isparta approach as moderately dangerous in my prefight prep. Not as dangerous as Roanoke, Virginia which requires turning and climbing after a missed approach. Rather a narrow valley requiring meticulous attention to course (as opposed to heading, which varies with crosswind). You didn't mention if the VOR receiver in use had the correct radial dialed in on the OBS (Omni bearing selector). If the course had been selected correctly, the crew would have seen a big needle displacement being 30° off course. Sure, correctly programming the FMS or a GPWS warning would have led to a different outcome. But flying a course 30° off in a narrow valley is a waiting disaster.
The approach plate which you repeated display depicts a LOC-DME approach. The localizer is the horizontal component of an ILS. If I were flying the approach you depict, I would have used the localizer back-course for the outbound leg, with the VOR radial on the second NAV receiver as cross-check. That way, even if I made a mistake and dialed in the wrong radial on the OBS, the discrepancy between the VOR and the localizer would alert me to the fact that there was some problem. IMHO, when a localizer signal is present, it's a pilot error not to use it as part of the navigation. Also, it appears they made the procedure turn in the wrong direction, another pilot error. As with all aviation accidents, it's never a single problem which brings down an aircraft, there is a chain of problems. While the aircraft systems problems contributed to this accident, they did not prevent the pilots from executing the approach as depicted. If the pilots had not made the mistake of not cross-checking the VOR against the localizer, they would have discovered their bearing error and remained on the proper course.
Good points. It doesn't seem like they were even tracking the back course.. Otherwise they would know they were on the wrong heading.. The cdi needle would be deflected. Also outbound they should be at 7000msl and above the highest terrain in the area. It was pilot error.. Assuming they had the same approach plates. Of course with the cvr and fdr inop.. It becomes easier to blame them.
Yeah, this is like shoving a whole bottle of tequila down your mate's throat, cutting their brake cables, then insisting they drive home.
Well, flying the wrong heading was pilot error, after all. To have made an immediate post-crash statement was dim on the CEO's part, regardless.
Pre judging an investigation with no facts just puts more attention on you and rightly so in this case
Yes. Pilot error is absolutely, unequivocally, a factor. Those pilots knew that they were not legally qualified to fly that plane, and yet they did it anyway.
Yes, the company is absolutely at fault, even more-so than the pilots.
But they should never have breached their own personal duties as pilots, which includes respecting proper training protocols.
They basically drove a car without a license. It doesn’t matter if the company allowed (or even pushed) you to do it. You still have a personal legal responsibility not to drive that car.
They’re both at fault, company and pilots.
I'm sorry, but, all I can think about is that line from Peter Graves, in the movie "Airplane" -
"Bobby, have you ever been in a Turkish prison ?"
I'm assuming the QAR could not be used or was to badly damaged
Nice to hear the tightarsed big wigs involved actually got punished for their negligence. So many get away with it, hiding behind the corporate veil. A slap on the wrist, a fine does nothing to impart personal responsibility for the people whose lives are in their hands.
So, did the CEO go to jail for 11 years, or did they pay some bribes to get out ?
The thumbnail spelling is wrong. It should be "How A *Company's* Lies Killed 57 People".
Well, as an ret. ATP I tend to rate this accident's cause as pilot error, since flying an outbound leg 30 degrees off IS a pilot error ant must not happen. But this would not do justice to the pilots at all. Rightly so, this criminal bunch of airline managers were sent to prison. It's them who killed all those passengers and crew.
Links that you refer to at the end of each video are not embedded. Otherwise great work.
The CEO knew it was pilot error because he didn't train the pilot, he made the mechanics not follow the rules so the pilot would have no idea what to do, and he sent the pilot into a situation above his skill grade. The pilot error was not standing up to the asshole running the company and flying a plane without autopilot.
A Company's Lies (Lies belonging to a company) not companies, the plural.
Glad I kept looking for the comment, I was about to submit the same one.
Great vids 👍
30 degrees is an error of near historic proportions. It's huge.
The captain didn't do almost any he was supposed to. He should of been fired on the spot
Now the first officer is the hero of the day,he did his work and the captains work.
The captain was supposed to order other people to do stuff,but he told the first officer to fly and talk on the radio and everything else. Way he talked to people,when he should of been handling the plane.
He's someone who needs a lot more training.
I believe he should at the least be grounded till he learns how to delegate his crew.
Thanks ☺️✈️
That's messed up. Those companies bosses should have gotten 11 years for EACH Life lost .. like 650years each one of them.