biology

Turkish Airlines Flight 1951

Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 rather than just read about it. In short: Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 (also known as the Poldercrash or the Schiphol Polderbaan incident) was a passenger flight that crashed during landing at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands, on 25 February 2009, resulting in the deaths of nine passengers and crew, including all three pilots. The aircraft, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800, crashed into a field about 1.5 km (0.9 mi) north of the Polderbaan runwa…

Key takeaways

Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 (also known as the Poldercrash or the Schiphol Polderbaan incident) was a passenger flight that crashed during landing at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands, on 25 February 2009, resulting in the deaths of nine passengers and crew, including all three pilots. The aircraft, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800, crashed into a field about 1.5 km (0.9 mi) north of the Polderbaan runway (18R), prior to crossing the A9 motorway inbound, at 09:26 UTC (10:26 CET), having flown from Istanbul, Turkey. The aircraft broke into three pieces on impact. The wreckage did not catch fire. The crash was caused primarily by the aircraft's automated reaction, which was triggered by a faulty radio altimeter. This caused the autothrottle to decrease the engine power to idle during approach. The crew noticed this too late to take appropriate action to increase thrust and recover the aircraft before it stalled and crashed. Boeing has since issued a bulletin to remind pilots of all 737 series and BBJ aircraft of the importance of monitoring airspeed and altitude, advising against the use of autopilot or autothrottle while landing in cases of radio altimeter discrepancies. A 2020 The New York Times investigation claimed that the Dutch investigation into the crash "either excluded or played down criticisms" of Boeing following pressure from Boeing and US federal safety officials, who instead "emphasized pilot error as a factor ... rather than design flaws."

Background

Aircraft The aircraft operating Flight 1951 was a 7-year-old Next Generation Boeing 737-800 series model 8F2 with registration TC-JGE, named "Tekirdağ". Model 8F2 denotes the configuration of the 737-800 built for use by Turkish Airlines. The airline had 51 aircraft of this model in service at the time of the crash.

Flight On board were 128 passengers and seven crew members. The flight was under the command of instructor captain Hasan Tahsin Arısan (aged 54). A former Turkish Air Force fleet commander, Captain Arısan had been working for Turkish Airlines since 1996 and was one of the most experienced pilots at the airline. He had over 5,000 hours of flight time on the F-4E Phantom II. Olgay Özgür (aged 28) was the safety pilot of the flight, a graduate of a flight school in Ankara, who flew the MD-80 for World Focus Airlines before joining Turkish Airlines and passing the 737 type rating in 2006; he was sitting in the cockpit's center jump seat. Murat Sezer (aged 42), under line training, was flying as co-pilot. The cabin crew consisted of Figen Eren, Perihan Özden, Ulvi Murat Eskin, and Yasemin Vural.

Accident

The flight was cleared for an approach on runway 18R (also known as the Polderbaan runway), but came down short of the runway threshold, sliding through the wet clay of a plowed field. The aircraft suffered significant damage. Although the fuselage broke into three pieces, it did not catch fire. Both engines separated and came to rest 100 m (330 ft) from the fuselage. While several survivors and witnesses indicated that rescuers took 20 to 30 minutes to arrive at the site after the crash, others have stated that the rescuers arrived quickly at the scene. About 60 ambulances arrived along with at least three LifeLiner helicopters (air ambulances, Eurocopter EC135), and a fleet of fire engines. An unconfirmed report by De Telegraaf states that the firefighters were at first given the wrong location for the crash site, delaying their arrival. Lanes of the A4 and A9 motorways were closed to all traffic to allow emergency services to quickly reach the site of the crash. All three pilots died in the crash. The bodies of the three cockpit crew members were the last to be removed from the plane, at around 20:00. Some of the survivors said that one of the pilots was alive after the crash. The relatives of the passengers on the flight were sent to Amsterdam by Turkish Airlines shortly afterward. All flights in and out of Schiphol Airport were suspended, according to an airport spokeswoman. Several planes were diverted to Rotterdam The Hague Airport and to Brussels Airport. Around 11:15 UTC (12:15 CET), the Kaagbaan runway (06/24) was reported to have been reopened to air traffic, followed by the Buitenveldertbaan runway (09/27). Turkish Airlines continues to use the flight number 1951 on its Istanbul-to-Amsterdam route, primarily operated by an Airbus A321neo and an Airbus A330.

Investigation The investigation was led by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB, Dutch: Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid or OVV), and assisted by an expert team from Turkish Airlines and a representative team of the American National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), accompanied by advisors from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Turkish Directorate General of Civil Aviation (SHGM), the operator, the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, and the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA). The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder were recovered quickly after the crash, after which they were transported to Paris for investigation. The Dutch public prosecution service initially asked the DSB to hand over the black boxes, but the DSB refused to do so. It stated that no indication of homicide, manslaughter, hijacking, or terrorism was present, which would warrant an investigation by the prosecution.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Turkish Airlines Flight 1951

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Turkish Airlines Flight 1951

In research: Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2009 disasters in the Netherlands, Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error, Airliner accidents and incidents caused by stalls, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 in simple terms?

Why does Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Turkish Airlines Flight 1951?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Turkish Airlines Flight 1951.