Early Friday morning, 56 people were killed after an Atlasjet plane crashed in southwest Turkey shortly before landing. Officials are sifting through the plane's wreckage found near the town of Keciborlu and cannot determine what caused the crash, although they report the weather was good. Witnesses said the pilot informed the tower they were inbound, then the plane disappeared.
Pieces of wreckage and personal belongings were strewn across a vast area and rescue crews were seen placing the dead into body bags. Television news channels showed footage of rescue workers in bright yellow jackets walking around the plane's fuselage, which lay amid rocks and trees on a slope slightly shrouded in fog.
Workers brought in heavy machinery to clear trees and make access to the site easier, state-run news agency Anatolia reported.
The MD-83, carrying 49 passengers and seven crew members, took off from Istanbul around 1 a.m. headed to Isparta on a flight of about one hour, but went off the radar just before landing at the airport.
"The weather could not have been better," he said. Doganer also said the crash "had nothing to do with a technical fault," though he acknowledged an investigation was required to determine the cause.
Helicopters took off from Ankara, the capital, to search for the plane. It was spotted five hours after it went missing. Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said the plane crashed 7 miles from the Isparta airport.
Families of those onboard first rushed to the airports of Istanbul and Isparta for news of their loved ones and later headed toward the crash scene. Families that had reached the area tried to pass through the security cordon to search for their loved ones, Anatolia reported.