TK1941 - Incident: THY A321 at Brussels on Jan 29th 2023

A THY Turkish Airlines Airbus A321-200, registration TC-JRR performing flight TK-1941 from Istanbul (Turkey) to Brussels (Belgium), was on approach to Brussels' runway 25L descending through about 4000 feet when the radio contact was lost, approach controller tried to contact the aircraft repeatedly with the instructions to turn left and clearance for the ILS approach. The crew could be heard calling on the guard frequency but didn't seem to receive, shouting as well as several pings within the cockpit could be heard on the frequency, approach told the crew they were blocking the frequency with their mike continuously open, and instructed the crew to squawk ident. Eventually the crew received the instructions, explained they had "occasional" failure, communication failure, set their transponder to loss of communication, and continued for their final approach and were told to contact tower on the guard frequency. Both tower and approach continued to call the aircraft without further replies. Some other aircraft were complaining on frequency the THY was annoying them with their frequency blocking as they could not hear their clearances. When tower cleared them to land runway 25L on guard frequency, the crew read the clearance back. The aircraft landed on runway 25L without further incident and vacated the runway stopping immediately when they were clear of the runway.

A (professional aviator) listener on frequency reported, that when this flight was approaching Brussels they somehow suffered a loss of communication and a lot of attempts were made to contact the aircraft on guard frequency by Brussels ATC. The scenario that followed was very bizarre as they were only able to respond on guard on occasion. When they did respond it all sounded incredibly hectic, confused and very stressed, at one point they were furociously shouting into the frequency. They were cleared to land on Rwy25L, vacated the runway but did not continue taxi even though two way communication could be heard on guard. It sounded as if they were unable to understand what had happened and where they were. A follow-me car was sent to guide them.

The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for about 10 hours, then returned to Istanbul.

Related Flight: TK1941, Twitter: #TK1941, Turkish Airlines News