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Officials face 15 years’ imprisonment over plane crash
On Nov. 30, 2007 Atlasjet flight 4203, a scheduled flight from İstanbul Atatürk Airport to Isparta Süleyman Demirel Airport, crashed in the mountains of southwest Turkey, killing all 57 people on board.
The families of the victims filed a lawsuit over the Atlasjet crash at the Isparta High Criminal Court on July 28, 2009. The fourth hearing in the case was held on Wednesday with the participation of 34 lawyers representing the plaintiffs.
In addition to Arıduru and Erdağı, 10 top-level executive and technical staff, including World Focus Airlines CEO Aydın Kızıltan, training manager Faruk Çağımnı, technical chairman İsmail Taşdelen, pilots and technical personnel Yavuz Yaşar, Sinan Sevinç, Fikri Zafer Dinçer, Şahin Tufan, Reşat Atalay, Fevzi Yavuz and Necati Küçük, are on trial for their part in the crash.
The McDonnell-Douglas MD-83 was leased by Atlasjet from World Focus Airlines, whose pilots were also flying the aircraft when it crashed.
After the crash, a technical investigation revealed that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), also known as a black box, had not worked for nine days prior to the accident. According to safety regulations, a CVR must be made operable within 72 hours of the fault being discovered. Teams investigating the crash, however, said the aircraft had completed “many flights” in the nine days before the fatal incident.
It was also discovered that the plane’s flight data recorder (FDR) was out of order. The device recorded only 15 minutes of the entire flight, experts said.
When aircraft technician Atalay was questioned by Isparta High Criminal Court Judge Suat Yürekli, Atalay said he had no idea that the FDR was out of order. Officials from the State Airports Management General Directorate (DHMİ) previously said that the plane’s instrumentation might be to blame. “Maybe instruments that had lost their precision transmitted the wrong information to the pilot, directing him to a point outside the runway,” they suggested. Airport officials said the plane was due for maintenance in eight days.
Hasan Kaşıkara, one of the defense attorneys, said the SHGM and civil aviation authorities are responsible for the plane crash. “A plane not flight worthy due to technical problems was allowed to take off and, as a consequence, a deadly plane crash took place, killing all 57 people on board,” Kaşıkara said. Underlining that his aim and that of the other attorneys is to find all those who were responsible for the plane crash, Kaşıkara said approximately two-and-a-half years have passed and yet the trial has yet to conclude.
The total number of defendants stands at 12. The next hearing in the trial has been scheduled for April 8.
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