ANKARA – Panic broke out on a passenger plane when it skidded off a runway and was left stuck precariously on the side of a cliff in northeast Turkey last night.
All 162 passengers and crew on board the Pegasus Airlines’ Boeing 737-800 miraculously escaped, with no serious injuries reported, following the incident at Trabzon Airport, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, provincial governor Yucel Yavuz said.
The cause of the accident is being investigated, officials said.
State-run Anadolu news agency said there was panic on board as the plane went out of control.
Pictures show the jet lying nose down on a muddy slope just metres from the water’s edge.
“We tilted to the side. The front was down while the plane’s rear was up. There was panic, people shouting, screaming,” passenger Fatma Gordu was quoted as saying.
Mr Yavuz said the airport was closed for several hours while investigations took place.
In a statement Pegasus Airlines said the plane “had a runway excursion incident” as it landed at Trabzon.
The airlines added they were “sorry to report” that Flight PC 8622 “had a runway excursion incident during landing”.
“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 on board,” the statement said.
Turkish Airlines said two inbound flights to Trabzon and a scheduled flight from the city to Istanbul were cancelled as a result of the incident. All services have now been resumed as normal.
