As their flight abruptly descended into Istanbul and hit the ground with a rumble, a Turkish couple tensed up. They soon relaxed when they heard a routine announcement telling passengers they could use their cellphones while the airliner raced down the runway.
»RELATED: 3 dead, 179 injured after Turkish plane skids off runway, breaks apart
But seconds later, the Pegasus Airlines plane plunged off the asphalt into a ditch and smashed apart, killing three people. The impact that ripped open the plane felt like an explosion. The tail section where Seref and Rumeysa Demirtas had been seated straddled a retaining wall. They could see the ground.
“That’s when the screams started,” Rumeysa Demirtas recalled from the hospital where her husband is being treated for a broken hip and shoulder. “People started jumping from the plane from that crack near us, first onto the wall, then to the ground, and running away.”
Credit: Mehmet Guzel
Credit: Mehmet Guzel
The crash-landing at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport on Wednesday evening killed three Turkish citizens. The remaining 180 passengers and crew members on board were injured when the 11-year-old plane, which came in amid strong runs and heavy rain, skidded off the runway and split into three pieces.
Seref Demirtas told The Associated Press he was nervous when he noticed how rapidly the plane made its approach to the airport and touched down “not gradually but very quickly.”
“And then when there was an announcement that said, ‘You may now use your cellphones.’ I relaxed. I thought, ‘Everything is fine,’ ” he said. “Then a few seconds passed, and this time the plane skidded off the runway and hurtled from a height of 30 meters (98 feet.)”
Credit: Emrah Gurel
Credit: Emrah Gurel
Rumeysa Demirtas described the panic she felt when she saw people fleeing the aircraft, squeezing out of the cracks in the plane. She didn’t know if her visually impaired husband would be able to get out. That was before either of them knew about his broken bones.
“One or two people were shouting, ‘The plane will explode! Run!’ and I panicked even more,” she said. “A seat had fallen on my husband, and (people) were stepping on it to pass through. I shouted, ‘You’re trampling my husband. Someone help!”
A man who heard her pleas helped extract Seref Demirtas from under the seat. The three of them pulled and pushed until they were out of the plane, off the wall and onto grass.
Other passengers also said the landing felt unusually fast. One, Alper Kulu, told the DHA news agency that the flight was “abnormal from the start to the finish.”
“It was a very turbulent flight. The plane touched down with difficulty. It was very speedy compared to other flights,” Kulu said.
Credit: Emrah Gurel
Credit: Emrah Gurel
He remembers hearing a voice over the public address system saying “Welcome to Istanbul” after the wheels touched down and the plane swayed left and right before it dropped into the steep ditch. The force was so strong it flipped the fixed seats in front of him completely around.
Kulu said he struggled with a broken arm to get out of the plane quickly and climb up the steep ditch, fearing an explosion and fire.
“There was panic and shouting. Everyone was calling for help,” he said.
Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported that prosecutors took statements from two air traffic control staff and two airport employees, as well as from the pilots of two other planes who aborted landings shortly before the Pegasus flight landed.
