Plane Crashes In Turkey, Killing 56

An Atlasjet plane crashed shortly before it was to land in central Turkey early Friday, killing all 56 people on board, the airline's chief executive said.

A rescue helicopter reached the wreckage of the plane on a mountainous region near the town of Keciborlu, in Isparta province, and reported back that no one had survived the crash, airline CEO Tuncay Doganer said.

Doganer said the cause of the crash was not known. But he ruled out weather conditions as a possible cause, saying there was no fog or strong winds at the time of the crash.

The MD 83 jetliner took off from Istanbul at 1:55 a.m. local time, headed to Isparta, but went off the radar just before landing.

Helicopters took off from Ankara, the capital, to search for the plane.

The plane went missing shortly after the pilot reported having seen the airport near the city of Isparta and was ready to land, Doganer said.

Families of the passengers first rushed to the airports of Istanbul and Isparta for news of their loved ones and later began heading toward the crash scene, private NTV television reported.

In January 2003, a Turkish Airlines plane crashed while attempting to land on a fog-covered runway in the city of Diyarbakir, killing 75 people. Five people survived the crash with injuries.

In May that year, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan and 13 crew members were killed aboard a Ukrainian charter flight which crashed on a fog-shrouded mountain slope near the Turkish Black Sea port city of Trabzon.

In 1994, a Turkish Airlines jet crashed as the pilot tried to land in a snowstorm despite repeated warnings from the control tower to turn back. Fifty-four people were killed.