Turkish Airlines Flight 5904
Boeing 737-4Q8 · Crashed shortly after takeoff due to instrument malfunction
From Adana Şakirpaşa Airport (ADA) to King Abdulaziz International Airport (JED)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA99RA053
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 6 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 6
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 737-4Q8
- Flight
- TK5904
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- TC-JEP
- Operator
- Turkish Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 6
- Route
- From Adana Şakirpaşa Airport (ADA)To King Abdulaziz International Airport (JED)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 was a Boeing 737-400 on an international repositioning flight from Adana Şakirpaşa Airport in Adana, Turkey, to King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which crashed on 7 April 1999 in the vicinity of Ceyhan, Adana Province, in southern Turkey, eight minutes after takeoff. The flight was on its way to Saudi Arabia to pick up pilgrims from Jeddah, and as such took off without any passengers on board. All six crew members were killed in the accident.
Flight
The aircraft was a Boeing 737-400, built in 1995, registered as TC-JEP, and named Trakya, which is Thrace in Turkish. Owned by ILFC, an American aircraft lessor, it was equipped with two CFM International CFM56 engines and had accumulated around 11,600 flight hours in 6,360 flight cycles up until the time of the accident.
The preceding flight from King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, had uneventfully transferred 150 pilgrims returning from the hajj to Adana Şakirpaşa Airport, where it landed at around 23:45 EET (20:45 UTC). Remaining on the ground for around one hour for refueling, Flight 5904 took off with a new crew – two pilots and four flight attendants – and around 10 to 15 tons of fuel at 00:36 EET to pick up more pilgrims from Jeddah.
Before takeoff, upon request by the crew, the air traffic controller at Incirlik Air Base relayed the weather report, informing the crew that the entire aerodrome was completely covered by thunderstorms and that the thunderstorms were moving from the south towards the north.
Accident
At 00:44 EET, at an altitude of around 10000 ft, the aircraft started to descend and crashed into a field some 30 nmi east-northeast of the airport near Hamdilli village, in the vicinity of Ceyhan, Adana Province. The force of the impact created a 15 m deep and 30 m2 large hole. The horizontal stabilizer of the aircraft was discovered some 250 m away from the main wreckage, which was spread over an area of around 500 m2. All six occupants were instantly killed.
The impact resulted in a large explosion that was reported near Hamdili. After the aircraft vanished from radar, air traffic controllers at Adana Airport and Incirlik Air Base immediately notified the Gendarmerie and the police to initiate search and rescue efforts.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation into the accident was carried out by Turkey's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The cockpit voice recorder revealed that while the crew was struggling to regain control of the aircraft, at least some of the four flight attendants were inside the cockpit panicking and screaming. The copilot was heard telling the captain "aman ağabey, gittik, gidiyoruz, bas.." (which roughly translates into "Oh brother, we've gone, we're going, push...").
Final report
The final report concluded that:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Turkish Airlines Flight 5904” (revision 1365837135, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Turkish Airlines Flight 5904
- Article
- Turkish Airlines Flight 5904
- Revision
- 1365837135 · 2026-07-24 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7855227
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA99RA053
- Event ID
- 20001205X00446
- Case number
- DCA99RA053
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Turkish Airlines Flight 5904" (page 7958430, revision 1365837135); merged with NTSB case DCA99RA053 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA99RA053
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Turkish Airlines Flight 5904" and NTSB case DCA99RA053, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.