ISTANBUL (AP) — A Turkish airliner skidded off a runway, crashed into a ditch and broke apart while landing in bad weather in Istanbul Wednesday, killing three people and injuring dozens more. Passengers had to scramble through the split fuselage to escape.
The aircraft, operated by low-cost carrier Pegasus Airlines, was arriving at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport from the western Turkish city of Izmir with 183 passengers and crew on board when it had what the Transportation Ministry described as a “rough landing.”
Istanbul Gov. Ali Yerlikaya said the plane failed to “hold onto the runway” and skidded some 50-60 meters (yards) before it dropped into the ditch from a height of about 30 meters (98 feet.)
“We are deeply saddened … (But) we are very happy that we escaped a greater accident,” Yerlikaya said, adding that the plane could have burst into flames.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca reported early Thursday that three people had died and 179 required care at multiple hospitals.
Emergency workers, assisted by an excavator, recovered one body from beneath the wreckage before the rescue mission ended.
The airport was shut down after the incident, which occurred at around 6:30 p.m. local time (1530 GMT), and flights were diverted to Istanbul’s main airport.
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian rescue officials said there was little chance of finding survivors after a boat with South Korean tourists on board sank on the Danube River in Budapest, with seven people confirmed dead and 21 missing.
The boat was cruising when it collided with a larger luxury passenger boat during a rainstorm on Wednesday evening, causing it to capsize and sink with 33 South Korean tourists and tour guides and two Hungarian crew aboard.
“I wouldn’t say there is no hope, rather that there is a minimal chance (of finding survivors),” Pal Gyorfi, a spokesman for the Hungarian national ambulance service, told the M1 state broadcaster.
“This is not just because of the water temperature, but (also) the strong currents in the river, the vapor above the water surface, as well as the clothes worn by the people who fell in,” he added.
Police said the smaller boat turned on its side and sank within seconds of the collision under a bridge near Hungary’s parliament building.
They said a criminal investigation was under way to determine the cause of the accident. Police declined to say if the bigger vessel, the 135-meter (443 ft) Viking Sigyn, put out any signals for help.
Police said its investigation yielded evidence that raised personal responsibility, so it questioned the Viking Sigyn captain, a 64-year-old Ukrainian, as a suspect, and later moved to take him into custody for reckless misconduct in waterborne traffic leading to mass casualties.
Police said it initiated the formal arrest of the captain, identified as C. Yuriy from Odessa.
Officials said the hull of the Mermaid, a 27-meter (89-ft) double-decker river cruise boat, had been found on the riverbed a few hundred meters from its usual mooring point.
A crane ship docked near the wreck on Thursday in preparation for recovery operations and divers prepared equipment. Police said the rescue efforts were hampered by high water levels, strong currents and bad visibility.
“Those who were trapped in the hull or were stuck underneath can be lifted only once the wreckage is pulled out,” a police statement said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban offered his condolences to Seoul. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the authorities would work with the Hungarian government to investigate the cause of the accident.
“What’s most important is speed,” Moon said in Seoul.
Some South Korean relatives of those on board started to depart for Hungary. Several family members were seen at Incheon International Airport in Seoul on Thursday night.
South Korean rescue teams and officials including South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha also left for Budapest on Thursday. She will hold a news conference with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at 0730 GMT on Friday.
Reporting by Gergely Szakacs, Marton Dunai and Krisztina Than; Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin, Joyce Lee, Do Gyun Kim and Minwoo Park in SEOUL; Editing by Jon Boyle, Ros Russell and Richard Chang
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Searchers found the bodies of the last two Alaska seaplane crash victims on Tuesday evening, after a hunt through the debris and frigid waters following a mid-air collision that left a total of six people dead and 10 injured, officials said.
“The last two people were found. They were found deceased,” said U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Matthew Schofield.
The discovery of the bodies closes the search at the scene where the two seaplanes crashed after colliding over the inlet waters near Ketchikan, in southeastern Alaska, Schofield said.
Work at the crash site will now shift to an investigation into what led the two planes, which were ferrying Princess Cruises passengers on sightseeing expeditions, to strike each other and fall into the waters of George Inlet.
A team of 14 National Transportation Safety Board investigators has been sent to the site and divers will start working on Wednesday to pull up the wreckage of the two planes.
The two missing people, an Australian and a Canadian, were among 14 passengers from a Princess Cruises ship who boarded two seaplanes operated by separate tour companies in the town of Ketchikan on Monday, the cruise line said.
A 14-member team from the NTSB began investigating the crash on Tuesday and is unlikely to determine the cause during the week the team will be at the scene, NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy told a news conference.
Ten people survived but were injured in the collision, which took place over open water during daylight, the Coast Guard said. The dead include one of the pilots. The victims were not immediately identified.
Three of the injured were in serious condition and seven in fair condition, Dr Peter Rice, medical director of the PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center, told a separate news conference.
The water temperature off Ketchikan on Tuesday was 48 Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. Expected survival time in 40-50F (4-10C) is one to three hours, according to the United States Search & Rescue Task Force website.
The investigators will be collecting information from the survivors, the Federal Aviation Administration, any other witnesses who might have been in the area, flight logs, training records and other sources, including the wrecked planes, Homendy said.
“We still have to recover the planes and then we have to look at those. It takes some significant work to really understand how the two came together,” she said.
All of the planes’ passengers arrived in Ketchikan on the cruise ship Royal Princess during a seven-day trip between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska, Princess Cruises said.
Ten passengers and a pilot were aboard one float plane, a de Havilland Otter DHC-3, operated by Taquan Air. Four passengers and a pilot were aboard the second float plane, a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, run by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan.
The crash site, at Coon Cove about 300 miles (480 km) south of Juneau, Alaska’s capital, lies near a tourist lodge that runs excursions to the nearby Misty Fjords National Monument.
Ketchikan-based Taquan Air said the plane was returning from a sightseeing tour of Misty Fjords when the crash occurred.
Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Cynthia Osterman and Leslie Adler
United Airlines is planning to reveal its long-awaited new livery on April 24th at a United maintenance hangar at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Little is known so far about the details of United’s new paint job, except that it will display a new and expanded brand color palette the carrier introduced in August of 2018.
United stated at the time that the unifying brand color going forward would be “Rhapsody Blue,” a dark navy color named in honor of United’s longstanding signature brand music, George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
The color details revealed also specified a lighter “United Blue”, even lighter “Sky Blue,” and a “Premium Purple,” shade currently being used in United’s new Premium Plus international premium economy cabin.
The new United livery is one of several major brand changes the airline has been making in recent years, along with a new Polaris International business class, Polaris lounges, uniforms with new color palettes, and a redesigned mobile app.
The moves in a new direction have come after the infamous incidents of a man being dragged from his seat two years ago, and a pet being forced into the overhead luggage bin where it died in-flight tarnished United’s brand image.
One person died Tuesday after a Southwest Airlines plane made an emergency landing in Philadelphia after it experienced engine failure, officials said.
Seven others who were aboard Flight 1380, which was headed from LaGuardia Airport in New York City to Dallas’ Love Field, suffered minor injuries, but were not transported to the hospital.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed one person was killed in the incident.
WACU reported a female passenger was “partially sucked out” of one of the Boeing 737’s windows when the engine exploded and shrapnel from the engine pierced through a window, a father of one of the passengers said.
“One passenger, a woman, was partially…was drawn out towards the outside of the plane…was pulled back in by other passengers,” Todd Bauer, the father of one of the passengers said.
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