Atlasjet Flight 4203

The plane was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 which Atlasjet leased from World Focus Airlines, whose pilots were flying it when it crashed.

Crash site

Local officials said the plane had broken into two pieces, with its fuselage and rear landing in different places. The Anadolu Agency news service said the plane's wings and engine were at the top of a hill while the fuselage was 150 m (500 ft) lower. A local reporter at the scene described luggage and debris strewn across a large area, which police have cordoned off. It was reported that the plane crashed away from the typical flight path. Officials are confused as to how the plane ended up there.

Investigation

Investigators found the two black boxes (the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder) during the afternoon of the day of the crash. Weather conditions were good at the time of the flight, with a visibility of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi), and the aircraft had no known technical issues. The pilots were experienced and had just come out of a routine training session a few days before the accident, as reported by the Anatolian News Agency.

Upon investigation of the black box of the aircraft in Lufthansa laboratories, the cockpit voice recorder device was found to have been inoperative for the 9 days leading up to the accident, in contravention of regulations which specify that it must be made operable within 72 hours of the fault being discovered. In addition, the flight data recorder was not working properly and only contained 15 minutes of flight data. Analyzing the available data from the flight data recorder, the authorities declared that the accident was caused by pilot error as a result of the condition known as spatial disorientation. The pilot is believed to have lost the sight of line for the horizon and instead of trusting the flight instruments, diverted the aircraft to the route where the crash occurred.