An Airbus A330 belonging to Turkish Airlines scraped its tail on the runway on departure. It returned to Istanbul afterward.

The Airbus A330-300 was working flight TK726 from Istanbul Airport (IST) to Tribhuvan Worldwide Airport (KTM) in Kathmandu, Nepal. The aircraft (TC-JOG) circled over Northern Turkey for more than four hours to burn off fuel before landing safely back on runway 35R at Istanbul Airport at around 00:40.

A post-flight inspection identified minor damage to the underside of the aircraft’s tail, and the plane was subsequently grounded.