The Story Of Turkish Airlines’ Incident-Prone Airbus A340

While Turkish Airlines presently has various Airbus widebody designs in its fleet, one model that it no longer flies is the A340-300. However, back when it operated the European quadjet, one example became known for being rather more incident-prone than its fellow A340s. Let’s look back at the story of ‘Deli Mike.’

The aircraft in question

The problematic Airbus A340-300 bore the registration TC-JDM during its time at Turkish Airlines. Data from ATDB.aero shows that it was built in February 1996 and joined Turkey’s national flag carrier two months later, in April of that year.

The quadjet spent over two decades serving Turkish Airlines and departed after just under 23 years in January 2019. By this point, as data from ch-aviation.com shows, it had been reconfigured with an all-economy setup that could accommodate 354 passengers. This high-density layout was implemented to increase capacity when taking Muslim pilgrims to the Hajj.

Two months after leaving Turkish Airlines, the quadjet joined Africa Charter Airline and was re-registered as 2-AVRA. However, it went unused for some time and sat in storage at O. R. Tambo International Airport (JNB) in Johannesburg, South Africa. After being stored for nearly four years, it was flown to Mehrabad International Airport in December 2022.

A subsidiary of Mahan Air allegedly acquired the Airbus airliner. On March 19, 2024, the aircraft entered commercial service with Mahan Air as EP-MJC. Nonetheless, its legacy has already been established, thanks to its involvement in various incidents we shall now explore. According to the data from Planespotters.net,

TC-JDM

• Airbus A340-300
• Turkish Airlines
• Delivered: April 1996
• Aircraft name: Izmir
• Configured “C34Y236” until Jul 2016
• Re-configured “Y354” Jul 2016
• WFU 8 Jan 2019
• Stored at ISL 23 Jan to 12 Mar 2019
• Stored at JNB 13 Mar 2019 to 23 Dec 2022

2-AVRA

• Airbus A340-300
• Avro Global
• Delivered: May 2019

XT-AKK

• Airbus A340-300
• Unknown
• Delivered: December 2022
• Ferried JNB-THR 23-24 Dec 2022 on delivery

EP-MJC

• Airbus A340-300
• Mahan Air
• Delivered: March 2024
• Entered into service 19 Mar 2024

Always eventful

While you might typically associate technical issues with older aircraft, it seems that TC-JDM’s problems began not long after it joined Turkish Airlines. Indeed, the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet notes that, shortly after its delivery to Turkey’s flag carrier, the crew working on the aircraft began noticing that its lights would randomly flicker.

It has also been said that the plane’s reading lights and call bells didn’t necessarily correspond to their seats, meaning that pressing such a button could cause them to illuminate elsewhere. Turkish Airlines employees began to embrace the aircraft’s odd personality, with Posta noting that they would even talk to it to fix such issues.

The jet was also involved in some more serious incidents. For example, the Aviation Safety Network notes that, in September 2011, it suffered a runway excursion while landing in Mumbai. Thankfully, there were no injuries to its 97 occupants. According to the report,

“A THY Turkish Airlines Airbus A340-311, performing flight TK-720, plane has skidded off the runway after landing at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (former Sahar International Airport, VABB/BOM), but no one had been injured. The Airbus A340-311 flight from Atatürk International Airport (LTBA/IST), Istanbul, was carrying 97 passengers and crew.”

Meanwhile, AeroInside reported in May 2012 that the same aircraft had failed to fully retract its gear while departing Istanbul and had to return to the airport. According to the report,

“A THY Turkish Airlines Airbus A340-300, registration TC-JDM performing flight TK-7 from Istanbul Ataturk (Turkey) to Washington Dulles, DC (USA), was climbing out of Ataturk’s runway 35R when the crew received indication one of the gear doors did not close after retracting the landing gear.”

Pilots leveled the aircraft at 5,000 ft into a holding pattern to perform safety checklists. Subsequently, after dumping fuel, the crew returned to Istanbul Ataturk Airport and safely landed on runway 35R, just over an hour after departure.

What’s in a name?

As pictured above, TC-JDM was officially named after the Turkish city of Ä°zmir, which is located on the country’s west coast. However, the temperamental nature of the aircraft caused those working at Turkish Airlines to furnish it worth another nickname, namely Deli Mike/Mayk. But what exactly does this nickname represent?

As it happens, it is derived from the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, whereby the words used for the last two letters of its registration are ‘Delta’ and ‘Mike.’ Employes of the Turkish flag carrier thus took these and changed the former to ‘Deli,’ as this is the Turkish word for ‘crazy.’ As such, its full nickname in English would be ‘Crazy Mike,’ which certainly seems to reflect its fun but eventful personality.