Those Going To Prison Include World Focus Airlines CEO, Twelve Others Acquitted

Eight people including an airline Chief Executive Officer will be going to prison in Turkey after being convicted of various charges associated with a 2007 aviation accident.

Atlasjet flight 4203 went down on November 30, 2007 in the mountains of southwest Turkey during a flight from Istanbul to Isparta Süleyman Demirel Airport. 57 people were fatally injured when the plane went down.

A post-accident investigation showed that the plane's cockpit voice recorder had not worked for nine days prior to the accident, according to a report in Today's Zaman online. The airplane had flown "many flights" with the inoperative CVR, according to the investigation.

The flight data recorder was also inoperative, the investigation found, and recorded only 15 minutes of data from the entire flight.

The High Criminal Court in Isparta convicted World Focus Airlines CEO Aydin Kiziltan and business partner Yavuz Çizmeci, who each received 11-year, eight-month terms for the same crime.

Fikri Zafer Dinçer, a technician for World Focus Airlines, who will serve five years and 10 months for his role in the accident.

The flight's two pilots, Recep Degirmencioglu and Vedat Örs, both survived the accident. Each was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for providing false testimony.

Those acquitted by the court included several top-level executives and technical staff of the airline.

(Image from file)

FMI: http://mobile.todayszaman.com/business_12-acquitted-8-convicted-in-2007-plane-crash-trial_369139.html