Plane makes emergency landing in New York after pilot dies mid-flight

A Turkish Airlines captain died after suddenly falling ill during an Istanbul-Seattle flight, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in New York, the company’s spokesman said on Wednesday.

“İlçehin Pehlivan, the captain of our Airbus 350 aircraft with TC-LGR tail registration, which was operating the flight number TK204 between Seattle and Istanbul, fainted during the flight,” Yahya Üstün said in a post on X.

“After the first medical evaluation to our captain on board was inconclusive, the cockpit crew consisting … decided to make an emergency landing, but our captain died before landing.”

Pehlivan, who had worked at Turkey’s flagship airline company since 2007, was 59 years old.

Pehlivan’s death marked Turkish Airlines’ first such case, but several similar cases have occurred in recent years.

Two pilots died mid-flight in 2022. In the US, a pilot working for Envoy Air became incapacitated during an Ohio-bound flight and later died.

Meanwhile, in southeast Asia, a pilot working for Citilink Indonesia died after an in-flight medical emergency.

In 2023, a LATAM Airlines pilot suffered a cardiac arrest and died while on duty on a Miami to Chile commercial flight.