Turkish media fails aircraft crash test

Ever since a type MD 83 Atlasjet plane on a flight from İstanbul to the southwestern city of Isparta crashed in mountains minutes before landing at Isparta’s Süleyman Demirel Airport on Friday in a tragedy that shocked the entire nation, investigators and experts have been stating that the recovery of flight data recorders would shed light on what caused the airplane to crash. However, initial media reports made in the absence of information, based on speculation rather than facts, showed that the appeal of yellow journalism can be very hard to resist for most of our newspaper editors, even in the face of tragedy.

The fact that one of Turkey’s most prominent nuclear physicists was a passenger on the plane, which had no known technical problems, as announced in the immediate aftermath of the accident, was apparently perfect material for some sordid journalism -- many of Turkey’s newspapers and columnists speculated that the crash was no accident, but sabotage by a foreign secret service to block what would have been Turkey’s unstoppable climb once it became the most advanced nation in terms of nuclear energy. However there was no physical evidence suggestive of sabotage, and dozens of statements from officials stressed that it would be impossible to draw any conclusions before the craft’s data recorders were inspected.

On Saturday Ali Arıduru, the head of the Turkish Civil Aviation Authority, said there were no indications of terrorism or sabotage. But on Sunday a daily announced in its headline that there was growing suspicion of sabotage in the plane crash, given that six nuclear physicists -- all key to a prestigious energy project -- were onboard.

In addition to the possibility of sabotage, Arıduru’s team of investigators ruled out the possibility of cellular telephones that had not been turned off as a probable cause for the accident; an announcement experts also made on Saturday. Despite this, dozens of television and Sunday media reports speculated that the accident might have been caused by cellular phones. No active, that is switched on, cell phones belonging to passengers were found at the site, experts said on Saturday. Sedat Gazozcu, a civil aviation expert who worked at the crash site said: “I heard no cell phones ringing. If anyone from my team had heard any ringing they would have let me know; we have to report that kind of information.”

However, some reports suggested that paramedics at the wreckage site heard cell phones ringing in the area. “There is no information at this moment for us to believe that any cellular phones were switched on at the moment when the plane started to go down,” said Haydar Kemal Kurt, a parliamentary deputy from Isparta. Although that possibility is currently being investigated, it has been established that even if there were any cell phones on at the time of the crash, they have no relevance to the reasons for the plane’s crash.

The investigators also established that some of the passengers were killed due to a sudden change in air pressure. According to the preliminary report filed by investigators to be submitted to Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım today, the plane would not have crashed had it been traveling 1.5 meters above its flight level at the time of the accident.

A US team of investigators will join Turkish experts hunting for clues as to what may cause the crash. A team from aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas, now a subsidiary of Boeing, was due to arrive in Turkey to examine the crash site on Sunday, according to an official from the Transportation Ministry. It is usual for an aircraft’s manufacturer to assist in any accident investigation.

Physicist falls victim to conspiratorial imagination

In criticism of the media reports, energy physics expert Serkan Gölge wrote in a commentary published in daily Zaman on Sunday: “The Turkish public opinion once again -- and perhaps knowingly -- is interested in conspiracy theories rather than the real causes of the accident. Since every pain that is lived is associated with a conspiracy theory, effectively distracting the public from the real causes, light is never shed upon accidents and the same mistakes are made over and over again since none of those responsible are ever found out.”

Gölge wrote that such an air of suspense was created in the Turkish media that “one would think that our scientists had made an invention that will turn Turkey into a world superpower in a few days and were thus killed by foreign powers for what they did.” He said imaginary scenarios were irresponsibly distorting the course of the investigation “with the aim of either covering up those who are really responsible, or out of concern for increasing newspaper sales.”

The real danger that lies in focusing on imagined causes of the accident instead of finding the real ones is enormous, since learning from this unfortunate experience would guarantee avoiding a similar tragedy in the future.

Pilot competency questioned

Although most newspapers chose not to question whether the airline, privately owned Atlasjet, might have any responsibility in the accident, Sabah’s experienced aviation reporter Güntay Şimşek wrote on Sunday that the accident, which seems to be the result of a pilot error, shows that private airlines’ pilot recruiting standards should be reviewed.

According to Şimşek’s report, Serhat Özdemir, the captain of the plane, left the army after an early retirement due to a disability and failed a simulator training test required every six months at Saga Airlines, his previous place of employment. Özdemir had to resign after failing the simulator training, after which he was employed by World Focus Airlines, the company that leased the plane to Atlasjet. The second pilot, Tahir Aksoy, was an experienced military pilot who was new to flying MD 83s. Experts draw the analogy that Aksoy’s situation is no different from a veteran cab driver starting to work as an inner-city greyhound driver after years of taxi driving. In other words, even though the crash might have been caused by a pilot error, the biggest responsibility lies with the airline administration that wrongly manages recruitment and fails in assigning the right mission to the right pilot.