What happened
A scheduled service departing from Istanbul-Atatürk Airport at 00:51 local time crashed while approaching Isparta Airport. The flight was carrying 50 passengers and 7 crew members. While the aircraft was cleared for a VOR/DME approach to runway 05, which required passing over the IPT VOR and maintaining a heading of 223°, the crew did not correctly program the arrival procedures into the Flight Management System (FMS).
During the night approach, the aircraft entered an area of rising terrain. Because the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) failed to provide an alert, the crew was unaware that the plane was at an insufficient altitude. The aircraft type collided with trees and crashed in a mountainous region near Çukurören, approximately 12 km west of Isparta Airport. The impact resulted in 57 fatalities, with no survivors among the occupants.
Findings
Investigations into the accident revealed several critical contributing factors:
- The crew did not adhere to standard operating procedures or follow published arrival protocols.
- A significant factor was that the EGPWS failed to activate to warn of the terrain.
- Records indicated the EGPWS unit had a history of malfunctions, having failed 86 times across various flights, and had been transferred from another aircraft, TC-AKM, just ten days before the crash.
- Low visibility during the night flight hindered situational awareness.
- Critical flight recorders were compromised; the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) was unserviceable, and the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) only captured the final 15 minutes of the flight.
- Discrepancies in crew training were noted, including insufficient documented training hours for the captain and undocumented training for the co-pilot.