Birgenair

‎ Birgenair was a Turkish charter airline company established in 1988 with headquarters in İstanbul, Turkey.

Code data

*IATA Code: KT
*ICAO Code: BHY
*Callsign: Alfa Lima Wisky

History

Owned by the Turkish businessman Mehmet Birgen, Birgenair operated charter flights from Western Europe to several Turkish holiday destinations, initially with DC-8 aircraft. Later it served the Turkish-German discount travel and tourism company Öger Tours for flights from Germany to Caribbean with Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft.

Incidents and accidents

On February 6, 1996 Birgenair Flight 301 was bound for Frankfurt, Germany but crashed shortly after take-off from Puerto Plata Airport in the Dominican Republic into Atlantic Ocean 26 kilometres off-shore. All 176 passengers and 13 crew members, among them 154 Germans and 9 Polish people, were killed. It was found that one of the air speed indicators of the Boeing 757-225 was not working properly, confusing the pilots about whether the plane's speed was too fast or too slow.

Massive negative publicity about Birgenair and other discount flight organizers in Germany following the disaster caused a sharp decline in reservations, and finally the company went into bankruptcy and closed later that same year, 1996.

Fleet

* 2 Boeing 737-300
* 3 Boeing 757-200 (1 destroyed)
* 1 Boeing 767-200
* 1 McDonnell Douglas DC-10

References

* [http://www.airfleets.net/flottecie/Birgenair.htm Fleet data]