Yesterday, a Jat Airways Boeing B737-300 (registered YU-ANV) skidded off runway 6 at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport at approximately 12.40 upon landing. Flight JU420 from Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport to Istanbul’s Ataturk skidded off the runway by some 50 metres, coming to a halt in a ditch. The aircraft’s nose gear and the right main gear were jammed in the mud as a result. There were a total of 125 passengers and 6 crew, none of which were injured. Passengers disembarked the aircraft via the stairs which were brought to the aircraft by the airport ground staff.
Heavy rain showers were reported before landing, leaving the runway wet and slippery, which is presumed to be the reason for the incident as all of the aircraft’s components were functioning normally. Jat Airways has said that this is a minor incident and that a replacement aircraft was flown to Istanbul for passengers on the return flight. Runway 06/24 was closed for some time until the aircraft was excavated from the mud. The aircraft has had minor damage but is expected to return to the fleet soon.
Istanbul’s runway 06/24 is known for its many overruns because of design hitches. The runway is known to be extremely slippery due to its rubber marks and the runway has a slope in its middle section. Among recent airlines which have skidded from the runway are TAROM Romanian Airlines, Onurair and Ariana Afghan Airlines.
Jat Airways has had a bad week with a lot of negative publicity regarding the Jat Tehnika strike which took place last week. This latest news won’t win any fans.
What bad news for JAT. Its a good thing no one was injured. Damaged aircraft isnt something JAT needs.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the pic, i think i had that flight attendant on one of my flights from Dubai via Beirut to Belgrade lol.
looking at the photo, shouldn't the flight attendants be the LAST to leave after making sure all passengers are safe... JAT is so useless.
ReplyDeleteJAT has a non existent safety and emergency procedures.
ReplyDeleteex-flight attendant of JAT
It is likely the passengers were evacuated when cabin crew left. On the other hand, the runway length meets minimum requirements for the aircraft and looking at the airlines who have had problems on that runway, extra training would have helped avoid them. If the pilot was not sure, he should have asked for another runway.
ReplyDelete@ anonymous
ReplyDeleteJAT has a good safety procedure. JAT has amongst the best safety records in the world, having from 1927 till today loosing 2 aircraft (1 to a rocket attack from the Czechoslovak army where Vesna Vulovic was the only survivor and 1 caravel coliding into Maganik enroute from Skopje to Titograd due to poor instructions from Titorgrad) so to me their safety procedures is unnecessary :)
@ Niti
JAT doesnt need to train its crew for landings at Ataturk. It isnt a JAT base. Runway works should be done at Ataturk Airport to improve its standard as TK is ever expanding from the airport and feeding it many millions of passengers each year. But it doesnt look like that any word of resurfacing the runway would happen until their is an incident with a loss of life. How can the pilot be for certain that the runway wouldnt be in a condition for landing prior to landing? Onurair, who is based at the airport, also had an incident which goes to show that even experience at landing on the runway isnt good enough. JAT might be the airline of a developing Serbia but that it is a bad airline.
^ correction:
ReplyDeleteJAT might be the airline of a developing Serbia but that doesnt MEAN its a bad airline.
@ JATBEGMEL
ReplyDeleteThe accident which involved Vesna wasn't because of a rocket attack from the Czechoslovak Army but because of a bomb explosion on board planted by members of the Croatian National Movement.
@ JATBEGMEL, just because Jat hasn't had many crashes, doesn't mean that it has one of the best safety procedures. It means that it has a good safety record, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it has good safety procedures. Its record may be purely due to luck. Because, let's face it, Jat has had too many incidents, especially in the last couple of years - way too many for an airline of that size. And I hope that they will go away before this luck runs out.
ReplyDeleteLast week I flew with Jat and my plane was changed because of the technical problems with that aircraft. A week before that, exact same problem with another airplane. Then Jat Tehnika strike which was followed by 2 incidents (two days apart). So 4 incidents, of which 3 were pretty serious (I'm not including the broken indicator light as a serious incident) is too much. Not to mention the recent incident with the plane's engine cover not screwed in properly, etc.
Defending Jat is just outright wrong. That airline has been on the backs of its people for a long tome. They have no proper business management system, haven't posted profits in years, have way too many employed, their customer service is next to non-existant, etc. For God's sake, they still have old logos on their ID badges. How hard is it to replace the badge? It is such a small thing, not at all important in the big picture, but it would be at least a sign that somebody is doing something that can be done.
Just because Jat is technically my national airline, I will not defend it. I will defend it when they return to the way they were in the pre-war era. Until then, I hope that they will go bankrupt quickly.
^
ReplyDeleteMost of the above is, sadly, true. There have been other, non reported safety incidents that have been extremely SERIOUS, fortunately no member of the public saw them....
This is really a ticking time bomb
If you take a better look (on a web-site of some news agencies) on a higher quality photo, you will realise that the people who are behind are either other members of the crew or people in some form of uniform, and they don't look like passangers. It is indeed malicious to think that crew will leave the plane first.
ReplyDeleteJat is not good, but not THAT bad, btw it happend to me million of times that I had to wait in the plane to fix some problems, but interestingly never in JAT (it happend in Lufthansa twice).
The sad thing is how the new management doesnt see the inefficiency of the B733 and how amongst its main priorities isnt newer aircraft, rather than bringing 10 aging B733's into an airworthy condition. I agree that JAT recently has had too many incidents, which isnt good for its reputation. This summer it had enough bad reputation, i hope the new guy would do something about it. So far he's canceled the order for 2 leased B737's, which to me was a bad move, and lead the airline into several technical issues brought forward to media and a strike. What interests me is how there is money for another name change of JAT, another livery and a new media campaign yet no funds to pay Jat Tehnika or bringing in a newer leased aircraft.
ReplyDeleteI to some extent agree that JAT shouldnt be defended, its just i think its the management and the government that should get the media bashing and the bad name, not the hard working workers. Its a shame how workers with JAT receive roughly half the wages of what their colleagues at Montenegro Airlines receive.
I agree its bad that small things could at least be changed, but hey, this is Serbia. The airline is run by the government, the same government who has made a coalition with the socialist party, the one run by Milosevic until 9 years ago. I bet every morning Dacic wakes up and pinches himself to see if he is still dreaming. Its the same government who spent $1 million for that Kovacevic guy. I think ive said enough there.
The incident was nothing to do with Jat's safety procedures or pilots. It was either because the air traffik controll allowed the plane to land on a bad runway or because the aircraft is to old. This is the reason Jat need a fleet renewal
ReplyDeleteThe only way the Pilots are to blame here is if they stuffed up the approach and landed half way down the runway, which gave then too little room to stop regardless of the condition of the runway at the time.
ReplyDeleteThe other three reasons for the incident would be 1, the state of the runway.
2, Aircraft malfunction, for example the reverse thrust or breaks failing.
3, Pilot error, for example the pilots not breaking soon enough. This would be a very unlikely case because it was raining at the time (or the runway was wet) and the pilots should have made a positive landing followed with immediate 'safe' breaking to bring the aircraft to a stop before, well you know.
I too do not think that the pilots have left too early here. It seems the people in the background are not passengers but airport officials and other staff. It also looks like the pilot is stepping over a 'tapped off' area which I assume the airport officials have placed around the aircraft which will tell you that the photo was taken some time after the incident. I also do not think they would allow passengers to loiter around the aircraft after an incident like this for safety reasons.
ReplyDeleteIf im not mistaken, a B737 needs something like 1.500 meters of runway for landing. The runway which JAT had skidded off has a length of 2.300 meters. It is known that the runway isnt in the best condition and that the skid marks on the runway from other aircraft and wet weather make the runway slippery. 2.300 minus 1.500 leaves only 800 meters of runway spare, and with a fully loaded B733 (125 passengers and 6 crew), lets say heavy 50.000 kgs, wet slippery runway...JAT just has bad luck i guess.
ReplyDeleteps: the guy in the pic isnt a pilot, he's a flight attendant lol
Austrian budget arline Fly Niki, owned by former Grand Prix driver Niki Lauda, has received permission to operate from Belgrade to Vienna, on a trial basis, from February next year. The cost of the cheapest return ticket will not exceed €29 euros, including taxes.
ReplyDelete@ Krste
ReplyDeletenice. im looking at going to Vienna next summer so i hope they would be available all summer for that fare :-) with JAT to VIE is 220 euros, OS is a little more expensive.