How Turkish Airlines and its passengers became pawns in the nation's political struggle

On the morning of February 25, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from Istanbul crashed short of the runway at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing nine passengers and crew.

On Wednesday, Dutch authorities released a preliminary report indicating that the crash was caused by mechanical failure, exacerbated by severe pilot error: The aircraft's altimeter - which had malfunctioned twice in the past eight landings - was faulty, and the pilots failed to note this or respond appropriately. It has further been reported that a trainee pilot with less than 25 hours' experience of flying this kind of plane was at the controls.

Spokesmen for Turkish Airlines, or THY (Turk Hava Yollari) as it is known locally, and European aviation experts have been quick to assure the public that the accident was an anomaly. Turkish Airlines' standards of maintenance and training, they insist, are the equal of any major European airline.

Immediately after the accident, European Commission Vice President and Commissioner for Transport Antonio Tajani, who is Italian, declared that Turkish Airlines had always had good safety and security inspection results.

The investigation is not yet complete, and it is premature categorically to assign blame for it. But confident assertions that there is no cause to be concerned about the safety standards at Turkish Airlines are equally premature.

The Islamic AKP has packed the airline with political and religious alliesThere have over the last few years been numerous accounts in the Turkish press of serious discontent among Turkish Airlines' employees with the company's new managerial cadre. Employees have come forward with claims that Turkey's governing AKP, a party associated with political Islam, has packed the airline's management and staff with unqualified political allies and co-religionists.

The AKP came to power in November 2002 and appointed the new THY management in 2003. The most serious charge - made by senior pilots, union officials, technicians and cabin crew, both on and off the record - is that new managerial policies have encouraged lax standards of aircraft maintenance and the hiring of unqualified staff.

Indeed, according to a story published last autumn in Turkish Forum, a serious and respected online publication, the Turkish Pilots' Association had warned the Civil Aviation Authority, and other relevant ministries and international bodies of their concerns.

On the one hand, these reports must be treated with some scepticism: they have appeared in the notoriously partisan Turkish media in the context of a bitter dispute between Turkish Airlines' management and the Turkish Air Workers Union, not to mention in the context of the exceptionally savage and frequently paranoid feuding between the AKP and its secularist rivals. On the other hand, it seems reckless simply to dismiss these claims out-of-hand.

Consider, for example, this interview with two veteran Turkish Airlines' pilots, published in the same Turkish Forum article.