Deli Mike

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.[1] 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.[1] 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".[2]

The cockpit of TC-JDM in-flight

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.[2] 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."[3] 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.[3]

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".[2][4]

The aircraft in 2011 with the old livery

Turkish Airlines pulled its Airbus A340 aircraft from scheduled flights in May 2016.[5] 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.[2] The aircraft was re-configured to have an all economy class lay-out, without any business class seats.[5] 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.[2] Deli Mike was the oldest aircraft of the Turkish Airlines fleet as of September 2017.[6]

On 22 October 2018, Turkish Airlines grounded TC-JDM alongside her sister aircraft TC-JDN at Istanbul Atatürk Airport.[7] The aircraft was retired from the fleet of Turkish Airlines in early January 2019.[3][4] The livery of the airline was removed from the aircraft later that month.[8] 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.[9]