An airport worker at Turkey’s Istanbul airport has been killed in an explosion on the tarmac this morning.
Cleaner Zehra Yamac, aged 30, died of head wounds hours after the blast, at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul, while a second woman was injured.
Police armed with rifles and protective vests imposed tight security at entrances to the airport after the blast, searching vehicles in the area, amid fears the explosion was a bomb attack.
Pegasus airline said the blast occurred at 2.05 am when no passengers were in the area, and that operations were continuing normally.
One cleaner suffered a wound to the head and the other suffered a wounded hand and both women were taken to hospital.
The explosion occurred in an area of the airport where airplanes were parked and the two members of staff were on a nearby plane.
The airport said investigations into the cause of the blast were ongoing, and that air traffic was operating normally.
Bomb attacks by Kurdish, leftist and Islamist militants are common in Turkey. A three-decades-old conflict between the state and the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has flared up in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast since the collapse of a ceasefire in July.
According to its website, the airport served around 26 million passengers in the first 11 months of the year, less than half the number at the main Ataturk airport on the European side of the city.
