A Boeing 737 flying on behalf of Turkish Airlines hit a bird on takeoff yesterday, damaging an engine and returning to the airport. The passengers were unharmed, but the aircraft suffered severe damage to its left-hand engine.
What happened to the Boeing 737?
An Anadolujet Boeing 737-800 was flying flight TK-7091 for Turkish Airlines from Kars to Ankara (domestic flight within Turkey) when it encountered a bird strike.
Specifically, the aircraft, tail number TC-JZO, took off from Kars on runway 24 and reached around 12,000 feet when there were a loud bang and streaks of flame from its left-hand engine (a CFM International CFM56).
The crew immediately shut down the engine and turned the aircraft back around to Kars. They proceeded to land thirty minutes later on runway six.
Upon inspection of the engine, it was apparent that something had struck the turbofan blades and caused a colossal contained engine failure.
📍Anadolujet Kars(KSY)-Sabiha Gökçen(SAW) flights on B738 plane hit birds after takeoff.
📍That incident while the left engine of the plane was damaged, the pilot decided to return to Kars Airport.
📍The flight canceled.@JacdecNew @AviationSafety @AeronewsGlobal @airplusnews pic.twitter.com/FfQbWPKf93
— HavArenaMedya (@HavArenaMedya) September 27, 2020
The airline canceled the flight, and the 737 is still on the ground today, undergoing a full inspection.
Bird strikes are relatively uncommon occurrences to aircraft, and generally, it is rare for an engine to collide. When it does so, airplanes have two engines for this very reason, and a plane can return to a nearby airport safely. It’s only in extreme cases that an aircraft needs to perform an emergency landing like the Miracle on the Hudson, which involved both engines failing.
Was that the only plane involved?
Interestingly, initial reports said that this aircraft above wasn’t the only plane involved yesterday. According to AV Herald, there was a second Boeing 737 that also struck a bird in its left engine on flight TK-7301 from Kars to Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport.
This did not happen and looking at the aircraft’s flight on FlightRadar24.com, and it is clear that it proceed without interruption to Instanbul.
Who is Anadolujet?
They are a subsidiary airline of Turkish Airlines (its tail is the same motif but blue), and they focus on regional travel around Turkey and to some nearby destinations. However, they do occasionally fly as far as Western Europe.
Some destinations outside of Turkey include London Stansted, Amsterdam, Rome, Milan, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Northern Cyprus, and Iraq. Many of these routes are under consideration until such a time that the market conditions can support them again. Flights to Iraq, for example, were blocked by Iraqi officials over concerns within Turkey back in August, and we will see if this will cause any setbacks for the carrier.
Currently, the airline has stored three aircraft of its fleet (see below).
What are they like to fly?
According to AirFleets, they have 38 aircraft, all of which are Boeing 737-800 aircraft (the same as involved in this incident).
The carrier operates on a semi-low-cost-carrier model. Semi as passengers can be transferred from the mainline full-service Turkish Airlines carrier for connections, but low-cost as the whole aircraft is economy with 183 seats onboard. In fact, the airline code-shares some routes with its parent organization, so you might turn up expecting Turkish Airlines but have the Anadolujet experience instead.
The carrier was only founded in 2018 and in 2020, fully integrated into sync with its parent airline operations.
What do you think of this news? Let us know in the comments.
