How a co-pilot crashed into a hill after mistaking highway lights for the runway.
BY MARK FINLAY
On Sunday, September 19, 1976, Turkish Airlines Flight 452 crashed en route from Istanbul Atatürk Airport (IST) to Antalya Airport (AYT). The aircraft, a less than two-year-old Boeing 727-200 with the registration TC-JBH, went down near Isparta in western Turkey, killing all 154 passengers and crew.
The aircraft, named Antalya, which coincidentally was the flight’s destination, was piloted by Captain Celâl Topçuoğlu and First Officer Sacit Soğangöz. Assisting the pilots were engineer Ahmet Bursalı and technician Muhittin Güçlü.
The plane took off for Antalya after a 35-minute delay
The aircraft arrived at Istanbul Atatürk Airport (IST) from Italy at 21:30 local time carrying 68 passengers. While in Istanbul, 78 more passengers boarded the flight for what they thought would be a vacation in the resort city of Antalya. After a delay of 35 minutes, the plane took off at 22:45 local time for the 300-mile flight south to the Turquoise Coast.
At 23:11, the pilots contacted Antalya Air Traffic Control (ATC) to say that they could see the city’s lights despite still being 62 miles north of it. They reported that they would begin their descent and go from 14,400 feet to 13,000 feet. Now reporting that they had the runway in sight, the air traffic controller at Antalya radioed them to say that he could not see them. The flight’s first officer Soğangöz radioed back and said:
“Should I believe you or my eyes?”
Realizing something was wrong, Captain Topçuoğlu, who had been in the passenger cabin, returned to the cockpit and gave the aircraft full throttle. At 23:20, residents of Isparta heard a large explosion after the plane flew into Karatepe Hill 62 miles short of the plane’s destination.
Most of the victims were Italian vacationers
Despite warnings from the controller in Antalya, the co-pilot mistakenly believed that he had the runway in sight when in fact, it was just the city lights of Isparta. The plane’s wreckage was scattered over more than a mile, and as residents went to look, the Turkish military arrived and set up a perimeter. Floodlights were used to help prevent people from looting the crash site during the night.
The aircraft’s flight recorder was recovered and sent for analysis the following day. Of the 144 passengers aboard the flight, the vast number were not Turkish but Italians heading to Antalya for a vacation. While most of the bodies were returned to Italy for burial, 18 Italian victims were buried in the local cemetery.
The investigation
Investigators quickly ruled out the possibility that weather had played any part in the crash after studying the conditions at the time of the accident. Experts deciphering the cockpit voice recorder revealed that the pilots were flying the plane visually instead of using instruments required for flying during the night. The plane’s co-pilot mistook a sizable dark area ahead for the Mediterranean Sea. What he mistook for the sea was, in fact, the Taurus Mountains. He also mistook lights on a highway leading into Isparta as being the runway lights of Antalya Airport (AYT).
Source: Aviation Safety Database
