An airliner broke in three when it touched down on Wednesday, February 5, at one of Istanbul's airports. The plane of the Turkish private company Pegasus then caught fire after leaving the runway at Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, located on the Asian side of Istanbul, according to images broadcast by the CNN-Türk chain. The fire was brought under control by firefighters, reported the state-run news agency Anadolu.

In a statement, Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya said 120 people had been injured and hospitalized. Dozens of ambulances were present at the scene of the accident, media reports said.

The Boeing 737, which carried 177 people, including 12 children, from the city of Izmir, in the west of Turkey, probably left the runway due to the heavy rain that fell on the largest city from the country.

Passengers stranded

Turkish Transport Minister Cahit Turhan said no one had been killed, but said some passengers were still stranded in the plane. "Some passengers left the plane on their own, but others are trapped inside and our rescue workers are trying to free them," the minister said on CNN-Türk. According to Turkish media, the two pilots, a Turk and a South Korean, were seriously injured.

According to images broadcast by Turkish televisions, the aircraft broke in two places after the runway excursion. The front part of the fuselage, comprising the cockpit and the first rows, separated from the rest of the aircraft. A second crack was visible at the rear third of the aircraft, comprising the last 10 rows and the tail of the aircraft.

The images broadcast by the Turkish media showed people on the grass around the aircraft, as well as a man standing on a wing of the plane.

Sabiha Gökçen Airport has been closed to flights and all planes redirected to Istanbul International Airport, on the European side of the economic capital of Turkey.

A metropolis with extreme conditions

Located at the intersection of Europe, Asia, the Near East and Africa, Istanbul is a major air transportation hub.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intends to make the city the number one airline destination in the world, notably using the Istanbul mega-airport inaugurated in 2018.

But the metropolis of more than 15 million inhabitants is regularly swept by strong winds and driving rain which complicate the task of the pilots.

Weather conditions, which can be extreme in winter, regularly force airport authorities to cancel flights.

Minor incidents, such as runway excursions or collisions with birds, sometimes occur at the city's two international airports. In 2018, a plane from the Pegasus company had made a spectacular runway excursion in Trabzon, in the north-east of Turkey, ending its race suspended on the side of a cliff. No one was injured in this accident.

With AFP and Reuters

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