Life ‘in the cemetery’ – Uncovering Istanbul Airport’s dirty secrets

*Names in this article have been changed to protect the identities of those involved

Hurtling through the dark in his dump truck, *Osman asks God to keep him alive.

He prays because he faces the many dangers of the new Istanbul airport project, where he sees signs of at least two vehicle crashes every night: twisted wreckage being towed away or blue lights speeding towards yet another collision.

The causes of these accidents lie in the darkness, as Osman struggles to keep his battered 20-tonne truck on the narrow path. Piled high with excavated earth, it trembles and strains under twice the recommended load.

Greater speed amplifies the risks of hitting potholes and makes the overloaded truck’s braking distance much worse. If his headlights pick out an oncoming vehicle, or worse, a person, Osman knows that slamming on the brakes might not be enough to avoid a deadly impact. But still he puts his foot down until the speedometer climbs to 80 km/h – twice the speed it should be.

Slowing down is not an option for workers like Osman, as they build the world’s biggest airport. The risk of death or injury is matched only by the risk of dismissal. If you don’t follow orders – or dare to complain about conditions – you’ll be fired. And Osman must provide for his family.

So, night after night, he climbs aboard his unsafe truck to pray and drive, for 12 hours straight.

Even when he saw a worker buried alive, he kept driving. Even when his friend died from a severed arm, he didn’t stop.

No matter how scared he was for his own life, he kept going. Because finishing the project late is not an option.

As Osman speaks about his work on the multi-billion-dollar project via a Skype video link and Construction News’s interpreter, he is careful not to show his face.

“I’m scared,” he whispers, wringing his hands. “I don’t have any money to hire a lawyer.”

His misgivings are understandable.

Workers who have spoken to the Turkish press about their experiences have been hit with legal challenges and faced a backlash from the companies involved, as well as the Turkish authorities.

Violent clashes

The ambitious airport project, the first phase of which opened in October 2018, has been dogged by allegations of poor conditions and fatalities since work began in 2014.

In September last year, just two months before the project’s official unveiling, worker frustrations spilled over into protests. The Turkish authorities forcefully suppressed the industrial action and imprisoned more than 400 of the organisers, a move that drew criticism from international organisations such as Human Rights Watch.

Turkish media captured violent clashes and, in the resulting furore, both the government and the joint venture building the airport partially acknowledged mistakes had been made, confirming at least some of the onsite deaths.

The official death toll is 55, a tally disputed by individual workers, as well as trade unions, which claim the total fatalities could exceed 400. Allegations continue regarding unsafe practices and poor conditions.

The $12bn (£9.74bn) project is being built and operated by a joint venture called iGA, formed from large Turkish contractors and supported by a host of international firms. Engineers Aecom, Arup and Mott MacDonald have all publicised their roles in the job, often citing the project’s speedy completion in “just” 42 months. The project’s design was led by British architects Scott Brownrigg, supported by three other international practices.

Construction News and its sister publication, the Architects’ Journal, have spent the past year working on a collaborative investigation into the project.

This article presents, for the first time in English, eyewitness accounts of the poor conditions and reckless supervision that led to so many fatalities. It also examines the role multi-national companies have played, with many firms seeking to burnish their reputations through connections to a project of such scale and ambition.

The investigation saw CN and the AJ battle a culture of silence to conduct hours of interviews with project insiders from around the world, at all levels of the supply chain, to uncover the full story of tragic deaths and worker unrest behind the world’s biggest airport.

Crushed to death

The first time Osman saw someone die, he was working the night shift.

The narrow roads, treacherous enough by day, were much worse by night. Osman relied on informed guesswork to navigate between the drop-off points. He was scared because he knew many accidents were caused by drivers not spotting each other.

The worker on the ground was quickly overwhelmed by the torrent. He was buried alive and died

When a tail light broke it was rarely replaced. The trucks kept to the airport site, never venturing onto public roads, so the owners saw little point in fixing damage.

Speed made the risks worse, as did foul weather, but that night he’d made it safely to the drop-off point.

He was queuing in his truck, engine churning, waiting to deliver freshly excavated earth. A worker on foot was there to beckon the vehicles and guide them into position to dump their loads.

One truck in the queue was piled high above the driver’s cab. A larger truck, it was meant to carry 80 tonnes, but had been loaded with half as much again. Osman could see no lights at its rear.

As the big truck moved into position, the worker on the ground crossed behind it.

The big truck’s driver must have been unable to see the man moving in the dark behind him. Horrified, Osman watched as the big truck suddenly released its rear hatch, causing tonnes of earth to spill out from its overloaded bed without warning.

The worker on the ground was quickly overwhelmed by the torrent. He was buried alive and died.

That victim wasn’t the first, and he wouldn’t be the last.

Victims of the safety charade

By the time they’d discovered *Arda, another victim, it was too late – he’d bled to death.

The airport workers we spoke to had all signed forms to say they had been trained in health and safety. The problem was, they hadn’t actually been trained. The documents were simply for show.

When someone was injured or killed, supervisors would call the workers together and promise to train them. But nobody knew of training taking place – they’d just write down ID numbers.

As the men looked down at Arda’s corpse – his arm blackened with dried blood – they knew his death could have been prevented if there been safety measures and emergency protocols, or if anyone had known what to do to save him.

In some instances, the charade went further than misleading documents. Workers say that wherever international firms were operating, the site was transformed to give the appearance of a safe working environment. Traffic lights and safety barriers would be installed, and even the workers’ shifts were reduced to eight hours. But whenever the foreigners moved, the safety measures went with them, reappearing only if a section needed to be revisited. Wherever they didn’t need to be seen, safety measures were removed.

Areas entirely invisible to outsiders were much worse. Worker accommodation, far from the standard of the rooms occupied by international engineers, were ridden with bed bugs and often had no running water, while workers were served rotten food crawling with insects.

Arda was one of the unlucky ones.

He was a truck driver who had run into trouble in a place with no safety measures and where no one knew how to help. He had climbed out of his cab to clear away dried mud fouling a piston that raised or lowered the bed of his tipper truck. In the process, his arm had become trapped and he’d started bleeding.

Arda should not have attempted the fix – he should not have been out of his cab – but there were no health and safety people to tell him that.

The stationary vehicle looked out of place, but for hours nobody passed close enough to see Arda’s predicament, nor had the time to stop to investigate. By the time someone eventually found him, Arda was dead.

Dangers on the roof

*Burak never got used to the sound of sirens. They blared across the site about five times a day, signalling that someone had been badly hurt.

He worked as a roofer on one of the terminal buildings and had experienced some near misses himself. Once, he’d had to drag a friend out from underneath a girder that had been accidentally lowered onto his leg by a crane.

What scared him more than anything was that the wind might blow part of the roof off while he was working on it. He’d seen sections blown away in other places.

Despite such risks, corners were still cut fixing the roof sections together. Burak could see there were five holes for bolts, but he was only allowed to use three.

When supervisors were asked “Why don’t we put the full amount in?” they’d say “Don’t complain.”

When the project’s top management visited, Burak wasn’t allowed to speak. He also had to stay silent during a government inspector’s visit. The roof was built using a German engineering system, and foreign engineers would be sent for the final quality control. But by the time they came to inspect it, the roof was finished. You could no longer tell there were too few fasteners holding it together.

The fear and frustration grew, but whenever an individual worker protested, others were too scared to join in. Solitary action seemed in vain, but that was about to change.

‘We are not slaves’

Finally, workers across the site downed tools because they could no longer stand the filthy conditions, disgusting food, long hours and lack of safety.

A month earlier, a small number of workers had protested after two shuttle buses carrying workers crashed, leaving a number of them injured. But this time it was different.

It was September 2018 and the pressure to complete the job had been ratcheted up. Buoyed by his success in the summer elections, president Erdogan wanted to make the new airport the centrepiece of Turkish Republic Day at the end of October.

iGA, the joint venture building the project, knew it had to deliver, having initially tried and failed to open the airport in February 2018 in time for the president’s birthday. A large-scale walk-out was the last thing the joint venture or the state wanted, as the deadline approached.

Journalists captured images of the authorities using a water cannon and tear gas to disperse the protesters

Yet thousands joined the demonstrations, occupying the area where the workers' shuttle buses departed with chants of “köle değiliz” – 'we are not slaves'.

The police and local gendarmerie were quickly on the scene, as were a handful of journalists from Turkish broadcaster Arta TV. They captured images of the authorities using a water cannon and tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Overnight, hundreds of workers were detained, some woken up and arrested where they slept.

Official records show 401 workers were detained in the aftermath of the walkout.

Despite being quelled with relative speed, the protests were successful in communicating the plight of the workers to a wide audience. There had long been stories about poor conditions in the Turkish media, but the events of September were covered by the likes of Reuters. Several high-profile NGOs also weighed in, with Amnesty International labelling the reaction “a blatant attempt by the authorities to silence legitimate protest”.

Promoting to the press

Even as many protesters sat in jail, international firms working on the project began promoting their roles ahead of the official opening.

The boldest came from British architectural practice Scott Brownrigg, which invited media, including CN and the AJ, on an all-expenses-paid trip to the opening event. Emailed invitations promised a guided tour of the construction site hosted by iGA Airport Operation chief executive Kadri Samsunlu.

The invitation included words attributed to iGA, boasting that the project had been completed after “only 42 months of construction”. The invitation was declined by both the AJ and CN.

Scott Brownrigg says it was not aware of fatalities during its work on the airport, while its website states that it always “considers the social, environmental and economic context” in which it works and that its operations “have impacts at a local, regional and global level”. The firm has also signed up to the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact, which includes sections on protecting human rights and labour rights.

The practice’s director of aviation, Maurice Rosario, defends its work on the airport but declines to explain how this aligns with its ethical policies other than to say that Scott Brownrigg cannot “control the policies and procedures of our clients”.

He says: “We developed the design and reviewed mock-ups but were not required to review any onsite work during the construction process. Access to the site was limited and tightly controlled by the EPC contractor. During this time, we were not made aware of any fatalities. ”

Mr Rosario adds that Scott Brownrigg was not “contractually responsible” for onsite delivery and construction, and was “shocked and saddened” to hear news of the deaths.

He says: “The safety of all who work on projects we are involved in is of paramount importance. Unfortunately, construction is inherently risky. Deaths and injuries can also happen on UK sites despite extensive work to mitigate them … it is only by being involved internationally that we can try to make the situation better and provide a catalyst for changing and improving global design standards.”

Asked about the practice’s recent promotion of the airport, Mr Rosario says the design has won several awards, including a World Architecture Festival prize, and that it is “widely acknowledged to be of architectural interest to journalists and those within the sector”.

Engineers get involved

At the time of the airport’s opening, other British companies attempted to maximise the opportunities for publicity.

“We took Istanbul New Airport from design to delivery in just 36 months,” proclaimed British engineering firm Arup in a public post on Facebook in October last year. “Not bad for an aviation mega-hub with the footprint of a small city.”

The engineer is one of Britain’s oldest employee-owned organisations, and claims to have values and ethics at its core. According to its website, the firm was founded on the belief that “the built environment can change people’s lives for the better”.

While Arup’s Facebook post boasts that it took the job from design to delivery, the company was more reticent when CN asked about deaths and dangerous conditions on the site.

The firm says it is “not in a position to comment on the site-safety questions … other than to note that it is the duty of every responsible engineer on site to act if they have safety concerns”.

Arup also pointed out that it worked on the project’s initial masterplanning, “but was not engaged on the main airport construction contracts”. The firm also acted as a strategic adviser and programme and project manager for the design and construction stages of the Turkish Airlines hub at the site.

According to Arup, its role with Turkish Airlines was predominantly design-focused with limited day-to-day involvement, and that it understands “there were no serious incidents associated with the Turkish Airlines scheme”, which was procured outside the main works.

According to Arup’s ethical policy, the business commits to integrating ethical considerations into its design and business decisions. It also promises to undertake due diligence on clients, joint venture partners, agents and advisers.

However, Arup would not comment on how these commitments related to its work on the Istanbul Airport project, restating its “clear policies” on working conditions and commitment to observe relevant standards.

British engineering firm Mott MacDonald was another company that issued a press release to coincide with the airport’s opening, confirming its ongoing involvement as transactional and technical adviser to the site’s financier, through a local joint venture.

Responding to CN’s enquiries, Mott MacDonald says “any death on a construction site is tragic”, adding: “We always take health and safety extremely seriously and voice concerns to our clients where we identify unsafe behaviours or unsatisfactory practices.”

The engineer notes that it did not have a permanent presence on site because its role was to advise the lender on the technical aspects of the job. It says that during its monthly reviews and site visits, health and safety performance “was always given highest priority”.

Mott MacDonald adds that where it identified “concerns or opportunities for improvement, these were raised promptly both in our reporting to the lenders, as our client, and directly to the consortium of contractors”.

The other major engineering partner, Aecom, landed contracts for a number of the technical designs and provided “construction supervision services”. The US-based giant did not promote its involvement in the project beyond an initial press release when it secured the contract.

In a statement to Construction News, an Aecom spokesperson said: “While Aecom designed the airside works for the Istanbul Airport project, our involvement did not extend to an onsite role.”

‘We have shed blood’

What did the workers that had endured life in “the cemetery” – as the project was nicknamed – think of the role played by international companies?

Reaction ranged from anger to disillusionment. For some, it was difficult to make the connection. It can be hard to see how designs drawn up in an airy London studio relate to a man bleeding to death on a building site near the Black Sea.

For others, the connection was all too clear. “English architects need to do some soul searching,” says Burak, the roofer.

“Wherever you are in the world, you need to consider the relationship between money and labour. You should think about the workers and support them”

“It’s us that puts our blood, sweat and tears into building it. Officially, on record, we have 55 friends that died. Their blood has been shed building the airport.

“Wherever you are in the world, you need to consider the relationship between money and labour. You should think about the workers and support them.”

Many stakeholders are involved in taking a major project from concept to completion, but when things go wrong, those businesses can be selective about their involvement. For Burak, such claims leave a bitter taste.

“If the architects are so proud of being part of building the airport, they should be willing to give their lives, like the 55 people did,” he says. “I’m not saying the architects or engineers need to die, but none of them did. It shouldn’t be the fate of those building the airport either.”