A flight of Pegasus Airlines narrowly avoided the Black Sea on Saturday after it suddenly skid off the runway at Trabzon Airport in Turkey.
The Boeing 737-800 aircraft came to a halt on the side of a cliff. Its nose was just a few meters from the water’s edge below soon after it left the runway a short after touchdown. It had been carrying 162 passengers and six crew members after it survived an extraordinary excursion accident.
The aircraft (TC-CPF) had arrived at the Black sea resort as flight PC8622 from Ankara on 13th January.
It had conducted an approach to Trabzon’s runway 11 and it has a length of about 2,600 metres. Images from the scene portray that the aircraft had departed from the left side of the runway and travelled part of the way down a coastal slope. Eventually it came to rest a short distance from the sea.
Pegasus has stated that all its occupants were able to ‘disembark safely’ from the aircraft and none of the people on board the airplane sustained injuries on account of the incident.
NOTAM data that was issued for Trabzon has identified an ‘aircraft wreck’ that was located about 60 metres from the threshold of runway 29 and 75 metres to the right of the centerline, protruding to a height of about 5 metres.
Meteorological data for the airport around the time of the aircraft’s approach indicates that there was light rain and reduced visibility owing to the mist.
