In the last few hours, a Turkish Airlines Airbus A330 bound for Istanbul had to make an emergency landing in it’s departure point of Colombo due to a problem.
Information is still limited surrounding the incident at hand, but below is what we know on this so far.
It is still a fluid story, with further developments to come in the hours and days ahead.
Turkish Airlines Flight TK733 – Colombo to Istanbul…
Turkish Airlines flight TK733, which suffered the incident, is a routine scheduled flight between Colombo and Istanbul.
Furthermore, the aircraft involved in the incident is understood to be TC-JNZ.
As per data from Planespotters.net, TC-JNZ is a 12.0 year old Airbus A330-300 that was delivered to the airline back in January 2014.
Of the Airbus A330-300 variant, Turkish Airlines has 37 of them in their fleet.
Moreover, of the 37, 28 are in active service and nine are parked, with an average fleet age of 12.0 years.
As well as the A330-300, the Istanbul-based carrier has the following other aircraft in their mainline fleet:
- 6 Airbus A319s.
- 21 Airbus A320s.
- 129 Airbus A321s.
- 22 Airbus A330-200s.
- 31 Airbus A350s.
- 80 Boeing 737 Family aircraft.
- 47 Boeing 777 aircraft.
- 26 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
In total, the airline has 399 aircraft in their fleet, of which 364 are in active service and 35 are parked, with an average fleet age of 9.5 years.
The A330-300s are the more older aircraft within the fleet, with the -200s being older and some of their A320s even older at 15.1 years.
Turkish Airlines flight TK733, which suffered the incident, departed Colombo at 10pm local time on December 16, and initially climbed out towards Istanbul.
The aircraft stopped it’s climb around 6,000 feet in and proceeded to enter a series of holds near Chilaw, Sri Lanka.
It is understood these holds were to burn fuel due to the Airbus A330 being too heavy to land at the time.
After a series of holds, the aircraft landed safely back into the Sri Lankan airport at 12:28am local time.
Local Media Reporting A Gear Issue…
As per Azzam Ameen on Facebook, it is understood that Turkish Airlines flight TK733 Colombo-Istanbul suffered a landing gear issue not too long after departing.
Furthermore, fire and medical teams were on standby in Colombo just in case anything happened to the aircraft.
With concerns around a landing gear issue, emergency crews would be there in case the gear collapsed and caused a wider accident, so then they could intervene and act immediately.
It is understood that all passengers and crew are safe following this incident.
Moreover, it is unclear how long passengers will need to wait to get to their onward destinations, as a new aircraft will need to be deployed from Istanbul to pick the passengers up.
As soon as we have more information pertinent to the issue at hand, then we will update you accordingly on The Aviation Hub.
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