Three fatalities have been confirmed as a result of the overrun and break-up of a Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 during its landing roll at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen airport.
Initial indications had suggested all those on board had survived the 5 February accident, during which the aircraft failed to stop on runway 06 as it arrived from Izmir.
It tipped over a steep embankment and came to rest some 200m from the runway end, its fuselage fracturing into three sections.
Turkish investigators are likely to be examining the weather conditions at the time of the overrun, and whether the decision to land on runway 06 – which was experiencing gusting tailwinds, according to Sabiha Gokcen’s meteorological data – contributed to the overrun.
The aircraft, operating flight PC2193 from Izmir under the callsign ’Sunturk 87R’, was advised of a westerly wind with a speed of 22kt, gusting to 34kt, when it was cleared to land, according to tower communications archived by LiveATC.
This would have generated a tailwind for the arriving 737. At least two other preceding flights, both operated by Turkish Airlines, on approach to the runway appear to have opted to execute a go-around.
Shortly after the landing clearance to the Pegasus flight another aircraft waiting to taxi was advised by air traffic control that the “runway will change” because the wind was from 270° at 25kt.
Turkey’s civil aviation authority states that the 737 landed at 18:19 and was carrying 177 passengers and six crew members. It says 139 injured occupants were transferred to 18 different hospitals.
Pegasus has confirmed three fatalities, citing official information, without elaborating on whether they are passengers or crew.
“We are deploying every resource to support those affected by this accident,” it states.
This accident is likely to draw attention to Pegasus’s operating record. The fatal Sabiha Gokcen accident is the second excursion suffered by the airline in a month at the airport, and comes just two years after another major excursion accident at Trabzon during which a 737-800 was left badly damaged and precariously perched on a cliff edge.
