You may remember that on Sunday we reported Turkish Airlines had taken delivery of one of WOW Air’s former Airbus A330 aircraft? Well, the aircraft has already been involved in an incident just three days after it entered service with the flag carrier.
Last week, Turkish Airlines took delivery of an Airbus A330 registered as TC-LOL. The nine-year-old aircraft used to belong to the now-bankrupt WOW Air. However, the aircraft is already temporarily out of action according to reports on Twitter. @AnalystTK has reported that the aircraft landed off of the runway at Port Harcourt last night.
TC-LOL
TC-LOL joined Turkish Airlines’ fleet just last week. The Airbus A330 is nine-years-old, having been delivered to Singapore Airlines in 2010 according to Planespotters. Around five years later, the aircraft was stored until it joined WOW Air’s fleet in 2016. The aircraft was then stored in April following the collapse of WOW Air, and has just entered service with Turkish Airlines.
On the 27th of December, the aircraft flew to Istanbul to join the Turkish Airlines fleet. Since then, the aircraft has been flying on domestic routes within Turkey. The flight to Port Harcourt in Nigeria was the aircraft’s first international flight while in the Turkish Airlines fleet according to FlightRadar24.com.
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The flight to Port Harcourt
According to data from FlightRadar24.com, the flight itself seemed rather uneventful, apart from running late. TC-LOL departed from Instanbul at 23:17. However, the flight was scheduled to depart almost four hours earlier at 19:25.
The aircraft climbed to a height of 34,000 feet, heading in a roughly southwest direction. Reception of the flight on FR24 was lost over North Africa, however, it reappeared at 37,000 feet over Niger. The aircraft then began its descent into Port Harcourt in the skies above Nigeria.
Lack of coverage at the destination
FlightRadar24.com has a lack of coverage of flights arriving at Port Harcourt, so we need to rely on other accounts to determine what happened. On Twitter, Turkish Air News stated:
Turkish Airlines Airbus A330-343 registred TC-LOL, was performing flight #TK627 from IST to Port Harcourt, when the PIC landed the aircraft next to the runway due to confusion of the runway lights.
TC-LOL introduced in service 3 days ago (!!!) and was on his first intl. flight. pic.twitter.com/h0Cab0Bs8P
— Turkish Air News (@AnalystTK) December 31, 2019
The return flight from Port Harcourt was canceled, and TC-LOL has remained on the ground in Nigeria since landing.
Simple Flying has contacted representatives of Turkish Airlines for a statement regarding the incident and will update this article when that has been provided.
Were you onboard flight TK627? Let us know what happened in the comments!
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Many qualified pilots in Turkey fled with their families to Europe and US after the failed coup attempt and they saw the response of their government. Military pilots were purged and/or imprisoned. The commercial pilots now operating are not as experienced as the lot that preceded them. Look for more incidents in the future.
Good comment.
I unfortunately think your comment is not accurate Gerry S. Coup attempt and people fled Turkey has a lot more aspects to consider before making a statement. Again unfortunately, Turkish politics are involved in every single thing in the country and that makes everything complicated.
But your statement may be applied to the current state of the Turkish Air Force, yet still I have no clear information about how are they dealing with their pilot shortage at the moment.