Turkish authorities have opened an investigation after a Russian passenger plane caught fire late yesterday after landing at Antalya airport in southern Turkey. Thanks to the rapid intervention of the airport’s emergency services, none of the 95 people on board the aircraft were injured.
Turkish media reported that the incident occurred at 21:34 local time (19:34 CET), when an SU95 aircraft operated by the Russian company Azimuth Airlines with 89 passengers on board and 6 crew members and coming from the Russian city of Sochi reported, shortly after landing on the runway of Antalya International Airport, that flames were coming out of its left engine.
The airport’s Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Services (ARFF) were quickly mobilised and arrived just 23 seconds later and extinguished the fire within 2 minutes, the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure confirmed in a statement, while all passengers were safely evacuated through the emergency exits ‘at 21:43 and without injury’, the ministry statement said.
Due to the incident, the plane was temporarily stranded on the runway, making it impossible to use and forcing the suspension of landings at the airport until 3am on Monday morning, ministry sources said, while take-off manoeuvres were carried out from the runway reserved for military flights.
The news of the Russian plane fire at Antalya airport were widely reported in the Turkish media, which showed images recorded by numerous witnesses of the moment when the emergency services had to intervene to extinguish the flames. The same plane had already had to make an emergency landing just a month ago, when on 16 October and with 102 passengers on board pilots reported a loss of hydraulic fluid and sparks during the landing manoeuvre at Moscow-Vnukovo International Airport. These incidents could therefore be related to the lack of maintenance and spare parts on Russian planes due to international sanctions.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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