Deli Mike
Deli Mike or Deli Mayk (English: "Crazy Mike") is a given nickname to an Airbus A340-300 operated by Turkish Airlines with civil registration TC-JDM. Joining the Turkish Airlines fleet in 1996, the aircraft was used to operate long-haul flights out of Turkey and had a record of having strange technical failures. This unreliability gave the aircraft its nickname, which is a wordplay on the ICAO spelling alphabet. The aircraft was re-configured in 2016 to only have economy class seats and was used to carry passengers to Hajj. "Deli Mike" was removed from the Turkish  Airlines fleet in early 2019 and was flown to O. R. Tambo International Airport later that year. The aircraft is currently stored and has been re-registered as 2-AVRA. History. Background. In late 1980s, Turkish Airlines wanted to expand to North America and East Asia. However, there were no aircraft in the fleet of the airline that could fly the distance. After the examination of two possible aircraft types, Airbus A340 and McDonnell Douglas MD-11, the board of directors of the airline chose the Airbus A340. On 27 March 1990, Turkish Airlines ordered five Airbus A340-300 aircraft, which  included an option for further five. TC-JDM joined the fleet of Turkish Airlines in April 1996 and became the fourth A340 to do so. The aircraft was given the name "İzmir". Technical failures and nickname. Shortly after delivery, the aircraft started to have "random" technical issues and failures. Sometimes, the aircraft turned its lights on by itself and turned them back off as someone was trying to intervene. Occasionally, the lights of the emergency exits were turned on one by one from front to back "like a Mexican wave", not all at the same time, which according to the  cabin crew meant that "Deli Mike" "was in a good mood." The aircraft also made "small jokes" to passengers and crew. On one occasion, the aircraft started sounding the master caution alarm in the cockpit, causing one of the inexperienced cabin crew members to panic. Frequent problems with the aircraft include the reading light of a completely different passenger turning on when the button is pressed and the same issue also exists with the button used to call a crew member. In the ICAO spelling alphabet used in aviation, the spelling of D and M, the final two letters of  the civil registration of the aircraft, is "Delta Mike". Following the technical problems surrounding the aircraft, technicians of Turkish Airlines have swapped "Delta" to "Deli", which means "crazy" in Turkish, to reflect the characteristics of the aircraft, which gave the nickname "Deli Mike". Subsequent history. Turkish Airlines pulled its Airbus A340 aircraft from scheduled flights in May 2016. From July 2016 onwards, TC-JDM and other A340 aircraft in the Turkish Airlines fleet were used on charter flights to carry passengers to Hajj. The aircraft was re-configured to have an all economy class lay-out, without any business class  seats. In August 2017, it was noted that Turkish Airlines expected to maintain its Airbus A340 aircraft and use them for the Hajj flights until 2021. "Deli Mike" was the oldest aircraft of the Turkish Airlines fleet as of September 2017. On 22 October 2018, Turkish Airlines grounded TC-JDM alongside her sister aircraft TC-JDN at Istanbul Atatürk Airport. The aircraft was retired from the fleet of Turkish Airlines in early January 2019. The livery of the airline was removed from the aircraft later that month. The aircraft was ferried to O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South  Africa, on 23 March 2019 and re-registered as 2-AVRA. The aircraft is currently owned by Avro Global and is stored in Johannesburg together with three other former Airbus A340's of Turkish Airlines. Responses. According to technicians of Turkish Technic, the aircraft maintenance subsidiary of Turkish Airlines, ""Deli Mike" can fly to the other side of the world without any problems if she wants to. If she doesn't feel like it, she won't move even one metre on the ground." Some have even claimed that the aircraft has a soul and its own character, with one  popular story among staff stating that an employer fixed the faulty flight instruments of the aircraft simply by talking to it. The technicians also removed and re-installed all systems, and reset the software of the aircraft in an attempt to solve the issues, without any success. While criticizing Turkish Airlines in February 2018 for ordering new aircraft when many others are grounded in the meantime, Bora Erdin of pro-opposition newspaper "Sözcü" also added that the airline made "no clarification as to why the problematic plane ["Deli Mike"] was used persistently while unproblematic ones were on the ground", and  pointed out to the frequent issue of the landing gear not retracting after take-off, causing the aircraft to return to the origin airport.