Turkish pilots association says "wake turbulence"

Officials from the Turkey Airline Pilots' Association (TALPA) said in a press meeting on Friday that there is some information regarding a Boeing 757 type plane that landed in Schiphol Airport just two minutes before the Turkish Airlines flight.

"If this is the case, then air traffic controllers and Dutch aviation officials are the ones that should be accused. There are international limitations on such cases," chairman of the TALPA, Ali Ziya Yilmaz, said.

A Boeing 737-800 plane, operated by Turkish Airlines, crash-landed in Amsterdam en route from Istanbul on Wednesday. At least nine people, including four crew members, were killed and 84 others injured in the accident. The plane had been carrying 128 passengers and seven crew members.

Yilmaz said the plane descended very rapidly and this does not happen when the engines have stopped.

Violent mini-tornadoes can hang in the air for minutes in the wake just under the path of slow-flying heavy jets.

"When the two planes get closer to each other, the larger one should warn the smaller plane. The control tower should have opened the distance between the two aircraft. Everything seems normal until the last minute. One thing that remains uncertain is the information on the previous plane," the official added.

The investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident. Dutch officials earlier raised the possibilities that the engines might have stopped or the plane might ran out of fuel. Some media reports suggested the plane was under the control of a trainee pilot during landing. Turkish and Dutch government officials the cause will only be revealed after the investigation is completed and the block boxes are analysed.

Experts have raised the possibilities of vortex or wake tribulence alongside with the others. Airliners are separated by air traffic controllers to avoid flights encountering such dangerous turbulence.

Aircrafts have been known to be sent out of control after following too closely behind and slightly below a preceding large aircraft.

TALPA RAISES NEW QUESTIONS
"We are asking. Was the required distance placed between the two planes or not? Did the (air controller) inform the pilots of our plane that there was an aircraft ahead in the category of wake turbulence? Those questions should be answered," the TALPA General Secretary Savas Sen also told at the press conference.

The officials also ruled out the possibility of the insufficient fuel. "When this plane hit the ground, it had 4,100 kilograms of fuel. That means the plane had enough fuel to land in Cologne (nearest airport) and operate there (on the ground) for half an hour," Sen, a pilot himself, added.

He said according to the plane's speed at the time of the accident it should have descended 1,500 meters a minute, but instead it started to drop rapidly.

"If there were problems with the engines, the descending would not have been like this... Our pilots have put the plane on the ground as required," Sen said.

The pilots, Hasan Tahsin Arısan, Murat Sezer and Olgay Ozgur, all confirmed dead, have been hailed as heroes for the minimal loss of life despite such a serious accident.

* This photo was shown by TALPA officials during the press conference as an example of "wake turbulence".