Turkish Airlines aircraft makes emergency landing in Johannesburg, South Africa

A Turkish Airline’s aircraft, flight TK45 landed in Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo International Airport due to an unspecified problem. The flight commenced from Cape Town heading to Istanbul. As seen on the flight data, the Airbus A330-343 had been in a holding pattern for a couple of times after taking off. It was seen circling over waters on the west of Cape Town at an altitude of approximately 20,000 feet. Its flight took off at exactly 6 pm, local time.

To give you an idea, Johannesburg is known to be the largest airport if you were to compare it with Cape Town. It is also the main site where the South African Airways technical department can be found.

The aircraft being used is said to be nine years old. It was reported that the flight was climbing up of Cape Town’s runway 19 when the crew on board was unable to retract the landing gear and eventually stopped the climb at FL080. The aircraft or the flight TK45 entered a hold to work the checklists and then burn off fuel. The flight as diverted to Johannesburg wherein it took around two hours to do so followed by climbing up to FL200 and later on to FL220. Fortunately, passengers did not get any injuries as it landed at 22:36 (2030 GMT), approximately 4:20 hours after the departure from Cape Town and was being followed by the emergency vehicles as it taxied to the apron. The problem regarding its landing gear is currently being investigated by the local engineers.

The Airports Company of South Africa or ACSA has not yet to release a statement regarding the incident but did promise that Turkish Airlines will issue a press statement the soonest. Also, the airline company’s spokesperson also declined to provide vivid details about why such a thing happened on their aircraft.

The passengers on board the Turkish Airlines flight TK45 spent a couple of hours in a holding pattern which was over Robben Island on Thursday night. The aviation experts’ tracking system was able to notice that the plane’s landing gear did not retract. After burning fuels at exactly 2 hours, it was then diverted to the given airport in Kempton Park. Besides, the runway at Oliver Tambo International Airport has a huge space for emergency landings like this.

Passengers onboard expressed their frustrations through various social media pages regarding the lack of necessary information that they should be aware of by the airline.