Background

The Boeing 727-200 that operated the flight was built in 1974 with serial number 20982 and was equipped with three Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15 turbofan engines. Flight 452 was carrying 146 passengers and 8 crew members.

Accident

Flight 452 departed Istanbul Atatürk Airport at 22:45 Eastern European Time (EET) (20:45 UTC) for the one-hour flight to Antalya Airport in southern Turkey. At 23:11 EET, the first officer called the control tower at Antalya Airport to report that they had the runway lights in sight, even though the aircraft was actually still flying over Isparta, well to the north of Antalya. He requested an approach directly to Runway 36 (facing north) and immediately started to descend for final approach under visual flight rules instead of instrument flight rules without waiting for the clearance by the air traffic controller (ATC). The ATC asked the aircraft where it was going to land and warned that it was not in the region yet and it could neither be seen on the radar screen nor by naked eye. Seeing the lights of a 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) long straight highway north of Isparta city, the first officer responded that he believed his own eyes, but mistook it for the runway.

As the aircraft was at 150 metres (490 ft), the captain returned to the cockpit and became aware of the fact that the aircraft was descending onto a highway with truck traffic on it. He initiated a sudden climb with full power. However, the heavily loaded aircraft struck the slope of a hill at Karatepe with its right wing and crashed.