Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld sentences handed down to two former executives of Atlasjet in a trial concerning the crash of a passenger plane in the southern province of Isparta in 2007 that killed 57 people, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Monday.
The aircraft, chartered by World Focus Airlines, was en route from İstanbul to Isparta when it crashed on landing on November 30, 2007. Despite the absence of apparent technical issues or adverse weather conditions, investigations attributed the incident to pilot error, specifically a loss of spatial orientation induced by multiple procedural mistakes.
All 50 passengers, including prominent nuclear physicists Engin Arık and Fatma Şenel Boydağ, along with other scientists who were en route to Isparta to attend a physics conference at Süleyman Demirel University, were killed in the accident, along with seven crew members.
According to Anadolu, the 12th Criminal Chamber of the top appeals court on Monday upheld prison sentences of almost six years handed down to Atlasjet’s former CEO Mustafa Doğaner and then-flight operations manager Mehmet Şerif Erbilgin on charges of involuntary manslaughter.
The trial began on June 16, 2009. The first hearing, at which 10 defendants, including senior and technical staff working at World Focus Airlines, appeared, took place at the Isparta 1st High Criminal Court on July 28. The number of defendants increased to 20 during the course of the trial.
The court announced its verdict on January 6, 2015, sentencing eight of the defendants to prison terms ranging from one year, eight months to 11 years, eight months and acquitting 12 defendants, including Doğaner and Erbilgin.
The case was then brought before the Supreme Court of Appeals. The 12th Criminal Chamber of the court upheld the prison sentences imposed, overturning the acquittals of Doğaner and Erbilgin. The chamber also upheld the acquittals of the other defendants.
Upon a retrial conducted by the Isparta 1st High Criminal Court in 2021, the defendants were sentenced to almost six years for each charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Atlasjet, a private airline established in 2001, operated regular flights inside Turkey and chartered flights to Europe and other foreign destinations. The company assumed its final identity as AtlasGlobal in 2015. Due to financial problems primarily caused by the onset of the global pandemic, the company declared bankruptcy in February 2020.
