Inquiry Ongoing over Incident at Istanbul Airport

RAINWATER ON RUNWAY POSSIBLE CAUSE OF SKIDDING

Rainwater, tire tracks from previous landings and general state of runway are possible causes to yesterday's skidding of Jat Airways aircraft in Istanbul.
A Jat Airways team, headed by Captain Vladimir Banjac, yesterday arrived in Istanbul and looked over the site where Jat's Boeing 737-300 skidded.
After checking the parameter readings and conducting investigation, Jat Airways will provide a full report and inform the public about the findings.

"It is possible that rainwater, which remained on a part of the comparatively old runway, coupled with tire tracks from previous landings, affected yesterday's skidding of the aircraft on the JU 420 flight at the Istanbul airport", said the Jat Airways Flight Operations Director, Captain Željko Krstić.

There had been ten or so occurrences of skidding over the past ten years on the same runway where the incident happened involving incidents experienced also by local pilots. Due to the problem of accumulated tire tracks, this runway was briefly closed last year for their removal.