A plane crash that killed a beautician on a sightseeing pleasure flight was caused when the pilot clipped a power pylon in bad weather, an inquiry has found.
Victim Burcu Saglam, 22, perished together with the pilot when the light aircraft plummeted to the ground beside a gas plant in Pamukova, Turkey, last December.
Now prosecutors have blamed the crash on pilot Hakan Koksal, 54, who also died in the crash.
Koksal is said to have set a wing on fire when he hit an electric power cable as he flew above the Ovaakca Natural Gas Cycle Power Plant.
Air traffic controllers suddenly lost contact with the plane just 14 minutes after take off.
Tragically, Burca had only taken the flight to cheer herself up after a series of career setbacks, local media reported.
Investigators said her body was so badly burned that her father was only able to identify her by her jewellery.
Grim footage of the crash shows a fireball exploding above the powerplant as the plane clips a pylon lane.
Later footage shows the charred remains of the burned out plane with what seems to be one body flung out from the fuselage on the ground.
Heartbreakingly, a smiling social media post sent by Burca from the plane just minutes before she died is captioned ‘Byeeeee’.
Bursa Republic Chief Prosecutor’s Office says the cause for the crash was pilot error in worsening weather conditions.
They say poor visibility probably stopped the pilot from seeing the power line in time.
The Transportation and Infrastructure Ministry’s Transportation Safety Investigation Centre said: “The pilot initiated the navigation flight without evaluating the weather, and due to the deterioration of conditions during the return leg, he panicked and lost situational awareness which they said were the human factors that caused the tragedy.
“When the investigation file was evaluated as a whole, it was determined that the plane crash occurred as a result of Hakan Koksal’s faulty actions, which could be considered pilot errors, related to the use of the aircraft and pilotage errors due to weather conditions.
“Within these faulty actions, his and passenger Burcu Saglam’s deaths occurred.
“No faulty actions attributable to third parties could be found in the crash.
“Considering these points, and based on the expert report, it was decided that there was no basis for prosecution regarding the suspect and the incident due to the suspect’s death.”
