Weather data from Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport indicates rain and a strong tailwind component at the time when a landing Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 overran the runway and broke up.
Emergency services are attending the scene of the accident. Pegasus says injured passengers have been taken to hospital but states that there have been no fatalities.
The twinjet – which the carrier has identified as TC-IZK – had been arriving from Izmir at around 18:15, as flight PC2193.
It overran the end of runway 06 and travelled down an embankment, its fuselage fracturing, and came to rest with its cockpit section having separated and rolled upside-down.
NOTAM data for the airport states that “due to aircraft crash” the single runway 06/24 – which is 3,000m long – is closed.
Pegasus Airlines has yet to confirm further details about the number of passengers injured.
Meteorological data from Sabiha Gokcen at the time of the accident shows rain showers and cumulonimbus cloud in the vicinity.
But it also points to winds from 290k at 22kt – and gusting to 37kt – which would result in a tailwind component of 14-24kt as well as a crosswind element for runway 06.
The accident is the second serious event involving a Pegasus aircraft in less than a month. One of the carrier’s 737-800s suffered an excursion at Sabiha Gokcen on 7 January, also during strong winds and rain.
Cirium fleets data lists TC-IZK as a 2009 airframe originally delivered to Air Berlin.
