# Airplane crash in Turkey kills 62 Spanish peacekeepers

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-crash-in-turkey-kills-62-spanish-peacekeepers/177615>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 26, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-crash-in-turkey-kills-62-spanish-peacekeepers/177615 "2003-05-26T19:26:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-crash-in-turkey-kills-62-spanish-peacekeepers/177615/1 "2003-05-26T19:26:16Z")

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[Airplane crash in Turkey kills 62 Spanish peacekeepers and 12 Ukrainian crew](http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/05/26/turkey.crash/index.html)

Americans mostly get to hear only about their own forces kicking butt and very little about the peacekeeping operations which other countries carry out. I just want to remind Americans that there are many other countries lending a very substantial effort in peacekeeping operations and they deserve gratitude. Spain has had a very active participation in Bosnia, Afghanistan and now Iraq where they have been very effective.

The crashed plane was of soviet manufacture and antiquated design and poor maintenance is supected. This type of plane has a very poor record and has been involved in many crashes. It was owned and operated by Ukrainians and had been chartered by NATO. I have no idea why NATO needs to be chartering airplanes like this. [It was the second accident involving Soviet-built planes flying Ukrainian charter missions this month.](http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/05/26/ukraine.turkey.ap/index.html)

> [@](#):
>
> On May 10, the cargo door of an Il-76 plane, operated by state-owned Ukrainian Cargo Airways, opened at 33,000 feet (10,058 meters) above Congo’s vast jungle, sending dozens of people to their deaths. (Full story)
> 
> Ukrainian charter companies have become major players in international military, peacekeeping and commercial transport missions since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
> 
> Ukraine has capitalized on its production of the world’s largest transport aircraft, the An-225 Mriya (Dream), and marketed itself aggressively for peacekeeping missions since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
> 
> At least one An-225 Mriya ferried U.S. equipment to Kuwait during the Iraq war, said Leonid Polyakov, a military expert at the Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies, a Kiev-based think tank. Other Ukrainian aircraft have served missions in Afghanistan, the Baltics and Africa.

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**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airplane-crash-in-turkey-kills-62-spanish-peacekeepers/177615/2 "2003-05-26T20:01:27Z")

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Coupla comments:

A common criticism of western Air Forces is that airlifting capacity is often neglected in favor of more glamorous combat aircraft. In this instance, perhaps the charter was undertaken because there simply wasn’t a suitable aircraft available in the designated time frame.

The CNN article does not seem to refer to specific design or maintenance problems as a factor in this crash, although many ex-Soviet aircraft have gone down over the past several years for just those reasons. The most likely cause, based on the facts available in the article, appears to be that old show-stopper, controlled flight into terrain.

Elsewhere in the article, I’m wondering if the AN-225 designation for the aircraft used for logistics support is incorrect; I thought only one had ever been built, and I’m not sure if it’s still serviceable. Perhaps the author confused this model with the slightly smaller AN-124 Ruslan, which remains in use with several carriers.

MPSIMS: I occasionally see -124’s on cargo flights climbing out of IAH; talk about “aluminum overcast”. Hope one of those never goes down in Houston; it would certainly plow a long and deep furrow.