Turkish Airlines flight makes emergency landing in New York after pilot dies
NEW YORK: A Turkish Airlines jetliner headed from Seattle to Istanbul made an emergency landing in New York on Wednesday after the pilot died on board, an airline spokesperson said.
Pilot İlçehin Pehlivan, 59, lost consciousness at some point after Flight TK204 took off from Seattle Tuesday night, Turkish Airlines spokesperson Yahya Üstün said in a statement.
Crew members decided to make an emergency landing and worked to revive the pilot, Üstün said, but he died before the plane landed.
Data from the tracking site FlightAware shows that the Airbus A350 landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport just before 6 a.m.
Arrangements were being made for passengers to reach their destination from New York, the airline spokesperson said.
Pehlivan had worked at Turkish Airlines since 2007, Üstün said. A routine health check in March showed no health problems that would have prevented him from working, he said.
“As Turkish Airlines, we deeply feel the loss of our captain and extend our sincerest condolences to his bereaved family, colleagues, and all his loved ones,” Üstün said.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
