Turkish Airlines ‘ignored’ jet repairs

Turkish Airlines was accused a week before one of its aircraft was involved in a deadly crash near Amsterdam of “inviting disaster” by ignoring aircraft maintenance, it emerged Thursday.

Nine people were killed Tuesday, and dozens more seriously injured when the Boeing 737-800 flying from Istanbul to Amsterdam crashed into a muddy field on its final approach to Schiphol Airport.

Turkish Civil Aviation Union announced on its Web site on February 18 that Turkish Airlines “is ignoring the most basic function of flight safety, which is plane maintenance services.”

“The company administration does not understand the consequences of ripping people from their jobs and inviting a disaster.”

The union, which represents 12,000 Turkish Airline employees, is involved in an ugly dispute with the company’s management.

In the wake of the disaster, Turkish Airlines executives and officials from Turkey’s Transportation Ministry said the Boeing 737-800 had last been inspected December 22.  “There was no problem with maintenance in the records of the plane,” Candan Karlicetin, executive board chairman of Turkish Airlines, said in a news conference just hours after the crash.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the crash of an airplane with a good safety record, flown by a well-respected airline, at one of the world’s most modern airports.