Recep Küçükdağ had just picked up a passenger outside the emergency room in Muğla when something dropped from the sky ahead of his taxi. The fog was heavy and he was driving slowly. “At first I thought there was a fault in the car,” he said. “I braked by reflex. Then there was a noise, and we saw something had fallen to the ground.” He did not tell his passenger how frightened he was. Soldiers ran past. The thing on the ground was a helicopter.
It was an ambulance helicopter of the Health Ministry, and it had left the ground only seconds earlier. It took off on Sunday, December 22, at about 10:07, from open ground in front of the Muğla Training and Research Hospital in the Menteşe district, bound for Antalya. Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu said that 45 to 50 seconds into the flight the tail struck the hospital building and the aircraft came down on empty land next to it.
Four crew members
Nobody survived. The dead were the pilot in command, Tamer Gönül, the second pilot Bayram Çiçek, the physician Dr. Cengiz Çoşkun and the emergency medical technician Selçuk Saykal. Governor İdris Akbıyık confirmed the toll at the scene: two pilots, a doctor and one member of the medical staff.
The impact smashed windows on the fourth, top floor, where a meeting room is located. The room was empty, DHA reported, and Akbıyık said nothing was wrong inside the hospital. Fire crews sprayed water around the wreck because fuel was leaking and could have ignited. Firefighters, medics, police and the disaster agency AFAD all rushed to the site.
Fog and questions
The governor pointed to the weather: there was dense fog, and the cause was being investigated. Prosecutors opened their own inquiry. Muğla’s chief public prosecutor’s office assigned one deputy chief prosecutor and two prosecutors to it. The bodies went to the Forensic Medicine Institute morgue in Muğla for autopsies.
The Health Ministry posted a statement on social media. It said the helicopter hit the hospital as it lifted off, that the four colleagues had died, and that it would share information once its review was complete. Memişoğlu went to Muğla, visited the families waiting at the forensic institute and offered condolences.
Küçükdağ’s taxi camera filmed the moment the helicopter fell. “It was so close it felt as if it had fallen on us,” he said.
Sources
- Mugla'da Saglik Bakanligi'na ait ambulans helikopter dustu: 4 olu (TRT Haber)
- Mugla'da hastaneye carpan ambulans helikopter dustu; 4 olu (DHA)
