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 Other name(s) Deli Mayk İzmir Type Airbus A340-300 Manufacturer Airbus Owners Turkish Airlines Mahan Air Construction number 115 Registrations TC-JDM 2-AVRA XT-AKK EP-MJC 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.
The carrier touted its “u.
