The Boeing 737-800, en route from Istanbul to Amsterdam, broke into three pieceswhen it hit the ground short of a runway at Schiphol Airport at 1031 a.m. The fuselage split intwo, close to the cockpit, and the tail broke off. The crash site is about two miles from therunway.
A spokesman for investigators said two pilots and an apprentice pilot were amongthe dead and confirmed that the stricken plane's flight data recorders had been found and were tobe analyzed by experts.
Survivor Huseyin Sumer told Turkish NTV television he crawled to safety out of acrack in the fuselage.
"We were about to land, we could not understand what was happening, some passengersscreamed in panic but it happened so fast," Sumer said. He said the crash was over in five to 10seconds.
Hours after the crash, emergency crews still swarmed around the plane'scockpit.
Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said it was "a miracle" there were notmore casualties.
"The fact that the plane landed on a soft surface and that there was no fire helpedkeep the number of fatalities low," he said.
Experts said that might also have helped avert a fire resulting from ruptured fueltanks and lines on the underside of the fuselage, which appeared to have suffered very heavy impactdamage.
Having reached its destination, the plane would have used up a major portion of itsfuel.
At first, the airline said everyone survived. But at a news conference later,Michel Bezuijen, acting mayor of Haarlemmermeer, reported the fatalities.
"At this moment there are nine victims to mourn and more than 50 injured," he said.At least 25 of the injured were in serious condition and crew members were among those hurt.
A spokeswoman for local health authorities, Ineke Van der Zande, said six of theinjured were in critical condition, 25 were seriously wounded and 24 had slight injuries. Survivorswere taken to 11 hospitals including an emergency field hospital set up by the military in thecentral city of Utrecht.
The Turkish ambassador to the Netherlands, Selahattin Alpar, told Anatolia therewere 72 Turks and 32 Dutch people on board. There was no information on the nationality of otherpassengers.
Weather at the airport near the time of the crash was cloudy with slightdrizzle.
But Candan Karlitekin, the head of the airline's board of directors, told reportersthat visibility was good at the time of landing.
"Visibility was clear and around 5,000 yards (4,500 meters). Some 550 yards (500meters) before landing; the plane landed on a field instead of the runway," he said.
"We have checked the plane's documents and there is no problem concerningmaintenance," he added.
Turkish Airlines chief Temel Kotil said the captain, Hasan Tahsin, was veryexperienced and a former air force pilot. Turkish officials said the plane was built in 2002 andlast underwent thorough maintenance on Dec. 22.
Turkish Airlines has had several serious crashes since 1974, when 360 people diedin the crash of a DC-10 near Paris after a cargo door came off. More recently, in 2003, 75 diedwhen an RJ-100 missed the runway in heavy fog in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir.
Jim Proulx, a Boeing spokesman, said the company was sending a team to providetechnical assistance to Dutch safety officials as they investigate. He declined to comment on mediareports that at least four Boeing employees were on the plane.
Boeing's 737 is the world's best-selling commercial jet, with more than 6,000orders since the model was launched in 1965.
The 737-800, a recent version of the plane, has a "very good safety record," saidBill Voss, president of the independent Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia.
"It has been involved in a couple of accidents, but nothing that relates directlyback to the aircraft," he said, adding that the plane had the best flight data recorders, whichshould give investigators a rich source of information about the crash.
Investigators will explore a wide range of possible causes of the crash, rangingfrom weather-related factors such as wind shear or icing, to fuel starvation, navigational errors,pilot fatigue or bird strikes. Experts say initial results could be made public soon because of thesophistication of the Boeing 737-800s black boxes, although the full report will likely not beready before the end of the year.
Experts say crashes involving modern airliners are more survivable due toengineering advances that have resulted in strengthened structures and fire retardant technologiesused for cabin seats and furnishings, as well as better emergency training of both cockpit andcabin crews.
The most dramatic example of passenger survival was in the Hudson River landinglast month of a US Airways Airbus A320 that lost engine power when it struck a flock of birds. All155 people on board lived.
In 2005, an Air France Airbus 340 crash-landed at Toronto airport and burned; allpassengers and crew escaped unharmed. A British Airways Boeing 777 landed just short of the runwayat London's Heathrow in 2008 and the airframe was destroyed; no one on board died. And aContinental Airlines plane veered off a runway on Dec. 20 and slid into a snowy field in Denver; noone was killed.
The Dutch government pledged a swift investigation of Wednesday's crash.
"Our thoughts go out to the people who were in the plane and of course also tothose who are now waiting in uncertainty to hear about the fate of their loved ones," a governmentstatement said.
Wim Kok, a spokesman for the Dutch Anti-Terror Coordinator's office, said terrorismdid not appear to be a factor.
"There are no indications whatsoever (of a terror attack)," Kok said.
