10.04.2025 16:04
In the expert report regarding the hotel fire disaster in Bolu Kartalkaya, which claimed the lives of 78 people, striking findings related to evacuations have emerged. It is claimed that in the initial moments of the fire, instead of activating the warning systems, the staff conducted individual rescues for unidentified privileged individuals in the event of a crowd during the evacuation, and that the fire was not announced to everyone.
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On January 21, a 189-page expert report regarding the hotel fire at Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalkaya, one of Turkey's important ski resorts in Bolu, was included in the investigation file, where 78 people, including 36 children, lost their lives. The expert report contained striking findings regarding the evacuations carried out during the fire.
PRIORITY GIVEN TO PRIVILEGED INDIVIDUALS DURING EVACUATION
The report indicated that there was unequal treatment in notifying hotel managers and guests, while it was understood from video recordings and phone HTS examinations that priority was given to hotel managers and their relatives. According to a report by Mesut Hasan Benli from Hürriyet, it was stated that some unidentified individuals were treated preferentially, as noted in the video recordings. The relevant section reads: "(. ) In fact, after being informed of the fire, instead of activating visual and auditory warning systems, it was observed that individual rescue actions were carried out for privileged individuals whose chances of evacuation were low in case of a crowd during the evacuation from higher floors, and that some individuals were prioritized for rescue with a black passenger vehicle whose license plate could not be identified coming towards the hotel."
"THEY PASSED AWAY AS IF FALLING ASLEEP"
The TBMM Kartalkaya Ski Center Hotel Fire Investigation Commission met yesterday under the chairmanship of AK Party Erzurum Deputy Selami Altınok. Dr. Hikmet İskender, Coordinator of the Expert Committee from Istanbul Technical University (ITU), took the floor. İskender reminded that the expert report consists of 189 pages and talked about the work done by the committee.
Pointing to an image in the expert committee report, İskender said, "Ferda Apak, the wife of a friend of our late teacher Alper from a lower class in high school, passed away there at the age of 39, leaving behind an 11-year-old daughter. They somehow reached out to me, but they do not know I am an expert. They asked, 'You are an expert in this matter, can we find out if the daughter saw her mother suffering or if they suffered while burning?' What we can say here is that the one who suffered the most there is a girl named Şevval Şahin, who jumped and stayed in intensive care for 2 days. The others died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by the fire, and frankly, they passed away as if falling asleep, and then the bodies were burned. The deformations in the autopsy reports occurred later," he stated.
"WE EXPERIENCED THE 7TH LARGEST HOTEL FIRE IN THE WORLD"
Following this, Prof. Dr. Servet İbrahim Timur, the expert for the Grand Kartal Hotel Fire, shared the information contained in the report prepared by the Expert Committee, stating, "Unfortunately, we experienced the 7th largest hotel fire in the world. Our tragedy is great, we have 78 casualties. The fire is actually a very simple thing, but the chemistry and thermodynamics of the situation are different. Our job description is clear, and we adhered to that description as much as possible. Unfortunately, the fire department is far away, and the news in the media stating 'the fire department arrived late' is absolutely not true. You can clearly see how many kilometers away they are; they are going as fast as they can. Unfortunately, the reason for our high number of casualties is that the fire was much more intense on one side of the hotel. The other side of the hotel burned relatively less, and the people the fire department was able to rescue were those on the front side or those who came to this side. The place where the fire started is the restaurant area, I state this to end the discussions. All times have been verified second by second, tested, and are not open to debate," he said.
"WE SEARCHED FOR LPG PIPES FOR 15 DAYS"
Timur stated that the first team to arrive at the hotel was the Gendarmerie Criminal team and mentioned that they made adjustments to the video footage taken by the team. Timur said, "The first team to go to the crime scene, you do not see the LPG pipes in the place you see here. I will show you now," while Expert Committee Coordinator Hikmet İskender added, "We searched for these LPG pipes for 15 days. Now you see them here. This was taken from the crime scene video of the Gendarmerie Criminal team coming from Ankara. We were already looking for that pipe, but we could not find it; we found it later."
"NO AUTOMATIC SHUT-OFF"
Continuing the presentation, Timur added that the LPG pipe changed the chemistry of the fire and mentioned that he had gone to the scene multiple times for the first time in his career, stating, "As you can see, the Gendarmerie Criminal teams take the LPG pipe and leave it over here. They take it, remove it from the crime scene, and leave it here because they think, 'It has no function.' However, the truth is, you can see it on the ground. The LPG line comes directly from the wall. There is only one valve on this LPG line, which is a technical issue. The valve is left detached. The valve is behind the covering, meaning it is not in a place you can reach. This is the LPG line coming from the kitchen. It is not possible for you to close that valve or see it. It should have closed automatically; those systems are not present. Unfortunately, there is no automatic shut-off," he stated. Expert Committee Coordinator İskender noted that the LPG valve was closed from the main tank on January 21, but the flow of gas equivalent to two camping gas cylinders continued, and that a fire could occur if one of them exploded.
"THERE MAY HAVE BEEN CONTINUOUS GAS LEAKAGE"
İskender stated that the training of the Ankara Gendarmerie Criminal teams investigating the hotel fire was insufficient. Addressing criticisms regarding the late preparation of the report, İskender said, "Now, who pulled the installation inside? Who did the maintenance and checks? Unfortunately, no information or documents are coming regarding this. So we ask: Who checked the tightness here? Who allowed it to enter the show area? Who did not take the preventive measures or extinguishing measures? The problem here is, as you said, we do not know when the valve was closed. There may have been continuous gas leakage there. This is the minimum I can tell you; even if we assume the valve was closed, even if it closed automatically outside, the remaining is the minimum; you can easily multiply this by 3 or 5," he said.
"FIRE EXTINGUISHERS WERE TAKEN AFTER THE FIRE"
İskender emphasized that there were internal elevators in the building, but the elevator in the kitchen was not working, stating, "By the way, they took the fire extinguisher from there. That is, it was taken after this fire occurred. Who takes it, from where? Of course, you tell me, there are defense lawyers, etc. I have given statements three times, as far as I know, maybe more, every time I talk, they say, 'There was a fire extinguisher there,' etc., and when someone has destroyed that extinguisher, we could not find it. And this extinguisher was definitely taken after the fire. There are already traces of it; you can see it," he said.
"FIRE DETECTORS DID NOT WORK"
Timur emphasized that the fire warning system did not work, stating that the electrical panel was removed from the wall and could not be found at the scene. The expert committee included Prof. Dr.
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Levent Trabzon stated regarding the function of fire detectors, "During a fire, the escape reactions of people in camera footage, the reflection of their awareness in the cameras, all give us the impression that they were aware of the fire without receiving any visual or auditory warning. Especially the reactions of people on the seventh floor during their escape, being influenced by each other's voices, the sounds of footsteps, etc., we understand this from their reactions like 'Hey, what's happening, is there something?' and their body language. In other words, there has been no impression that the statement in our report indicates that it works."
"NO ONE TRIED TO GET A FIRE EXTINGUISHER"
Timur noted that the hotel staff was not trained in fire safety, and continued: "The staff had no training at all. Our clear view, which is also supported by their statements, is independent of this because at the moment they first saw the incident, look at this panic moment, they are leaving. While leaving, there is a fire extinguisher right here, at the place where the fire started. There is another fire cabinet in this area that is not visible, and a counter has been placed in front of it, so they couldn't reach it anyway, but no one has tried to get a fire extinguisher. There is one in front of the head chef's room, but they don't even remember where it is. Therefore, they have not received training. So we are clearly stating that: This staff has not received fire training."
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