Flight Slides Off Runway, Then Down A Cliff
Jackie Reddy January 15, 2018
Mobile phone footage of the aftermath of the incident, which occurred at Trabzon Airport (TZX), shows passengers panicking as the aircraft stops just short of plunging into the Black Sea. Travelers avoided certain demise only when the plane’s wheels got stuck in mud. No passengers were hurt.
A Pegasus Airlines flight slid off of the runway at Trabzon Airport (TZX) in eastern Turkey on Saturday night. The flight, which was inbound from the Turkish capital of Ankara, came perilously close to slipping down a cliff and into the Black Sea, the Telegraph reports.
Images of the plane show the craft well off of the runway at TZX, with the nose cone of the 737-800 pointed toward the water. Thankfully, no passengers or crew were hurt in the incident. The flight itself was eventually safely evacuated.
Pegasus Airlines confirmed that the flight had experienced what it called a “runway excursion incident.” “All 162 passengers, 2 pilots and 4 cabin crew have been disembarked safely from the aircraft. There has been no loss of life or injury to anyone onboard,” the carrier said in an official statement.
Newly released mobile phone footage, recorded by passengers in the moments after the plane left the runway, shows the chaos that ensued on the flight in the aftermath of the incident. In the clip, screams and shouts can be heard throughout the cabin, which is shown to be deeply tilted.
Passenger Fatma Gordu gave an eyewitness account of the incident to Anadolu, Turkey’s state-run news agency. “We tilted to the side, the front was down while the plane’s rear was up. There was panic; people shouting, screaming,” she was quoted by the Independent as saying.
The official cause of the incident has not yet been reported, but the Telegraph reports that “Data from flight tracking website RadarBox suggests the aircraft struggled to reduce its speed upon landing, reporting the plane was traveling at a speed of 110 knots (204km/h) on the final third of the runway.”
Pegasus has said that it will endeavor to provide any further details with regard to the cause of the incident.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
