Turkey starts lifting stricken Pegasus plane from cliff

Turkish engineers on Thursday began a complex operation to lift with two cranes a passenger plane which skidded off the runway at a provincial airport to a precarious position just meters from the sea, Arab News reported.

The Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane had landed normally at Trabzon airport late on Saturday on a flight from Ankara but then went off the runway just meters (feet) from the waters of the Black Sea with its wheels stuck in mud.

Since then, it has remained on the steep slope that descends from the airport apron into the sea for four days, its nose pointing down and managing to defy gravity by being stuck in thick mud.