Now then, how do I reverse this thing?
‘It’s a miracle we escaped’
THIS was the astonishing scene after a plane carrying 168 passengers and crew skidded off a runway and down a muddy cliffside.
The Boeing 737-800 came to rest with its nose feet from the Black Sea at Trabzon airport in north-east Turkey on Saturday.
The aircraft’s port engine was ripped from the wing during the crash, ending up in the water. Passenger Yuksel Gordu said: ‘It’s a miracle we escaped. We could have burned, exploded, flown into the sea.’
Fellow passenger Fatma Gordu described hearing a loud noise after the Pegasus Airlines plane, which had flown from the capital Ankara, 450 miles away, landed. ‘We swerved all of a sudden. The front of the plane crashed and the back was in the air. Everyone panicked,’ she said.
There were no reports of injuries but mobile phone footage showed passengers scrambling up the sharply inclined aisle after being told to exit through the back doors. They then climbed up the muddy cliff to safety as firemen piped foam into the plane in case of fire.
There were reports that icy conditions may have played a role in the accident, with the aircraft struggling to reduce speed on landing.
Trabzon airport was built on land reclaimed from the sea in 1959 and serves more than two million passengers a year.