Boeing 737 Broke Apart After Overrunning Runway In Istanbul

by Gary Leff

A Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737 touched down in bad weather at Istanbul’s second airport (Sabiha, code SAW) after flying from Izmir, Turkey. Flight PC 2193 overran runway 6 and hit the airport’s perimeter wall. The plane broke into 3 parts. An engine that separated caught fire.

There were 183 passengers and crew on board. It took nearly five hours to free everyone from the wreckage. One person is reported to have perished, and 157 taken to area hospitals. All six crew on board were injured.

According to The Aviation Herald,

[T]he aircraft landed long and hot, 1500 meters before the runway threshold the aircraft was descending through 950 feet MSL (corrected for local pressure, actual Mode-S reading 1500 feet)/661 feet AGL at 194 knots over ground, touched down about abeam taxiways T/F (about 1950 meters/6400 feet past the threshold, about 1000 meters/3300 feet before the runway end) at about 130 knots over ground, overran the end of the runway at about 63 knots over ground veering slightly to the left (last transponder transmission), hit the localizer antenna runway 06, went over an airport road and a cliff and impacted the airport perimeter wall.

It’s impressive how many people survived with “the fuselage and the seating systems work[ing] together to absorb the impact energy.”

This was the third Pegasus Airlines runway excursion in the past three years, including an incident last month at the same airport. The country’s chief prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Five hours is a long time. And there are “injuries” and then “injuries”. Some cuts or a minor fracture is one injury but others that require extensive surgery and a long rehab are another.

    Obviously if someone is seriously hurt it can take a while to get them onto a stretcher/board and remove them. I wonder if others were ambulatory but couldn’t get out due to being blocked by broken parts of the plane/jagged metal and had to be cut out?

    Hopefully most of the injuries aren’t too severe. Too bad one person didn’t make it. Fortunately the plane didn’t catch fire. (Can’t view the video at work)

  2. Gary,

    Thought you might want to see this..

    Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf exclusively told Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Wednesday that DHS was immediately suspending Global Entry and several other Trusted Traveler Programs (TTP) for all New York state residents — a dramatic move in response to the liberal state’s recently enacted sanctuary “Green Light Law.”

    As a result, New York residents “will no longer be eligible to enroll or re-enroll” in select TTPs — including Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI, and FAST. Wolf noted that TTP “permits expedited processing into the U.S. from international destinations (under Global Entry); Canada only (under NEXUS); and Canada and Mexico only (under SENTRI).” Additionally, TTP allows quicker processing for commercial truck drivers entering or leaving the U.S. (under FAST).

    TSA Pre-Check was not among the list of TTPs currently affected by the order, according to DHS’ letter.

  4. @ Ryan

    The accident was at Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW), not the new Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. It’s been around for nearly 20 years.

  5. It’s Ismir, Turkey. Pegasus is a well-established low cost Turkish airline. Kind of like a local Air Asia. Plenty of foreigners (including me) fly it out of SAW on domestic Turkish flights when the fares out of SAW are much cheaper than from IST (the commute to SAW is a bit of a PITA as you have to cross the Bosphorus). Pegasus’ recent safety issues are certainly concerning.

  6. Cmon Gary. Some better research needed… the airport’s name is Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen, not just Sabiha. It’s like introducing JFK as New York’s John airport. It’s also spelled “Izmir”.

  7. @Gary Trump just banned New Yorkers from applying for or renewing global entry. Please bring attention to this issue as this is an attack on people who live in a state to get back at democrat politicians and has no sound basis.

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