- Title: NETHERLANDS: Turkish plane crash survivor speaks from hospital
- Date: 27th February 2009
- Summary: SCHIPOL AIRPORT, NETHERLANDS (FEBRUARY 25, 2009) (REUTERS) SIGN FOR ARRIVALS REPRESENTATIVE FROM TURKISH AIRLINES ARRIVING SECURITY INSIDE AIRPORT VARIOUS OF ARRIVALS FROM AN UNSCHEDULED FLIGHT FROM ISTANBUL ARRIVING AND COLLECTING THEIR LUGGAGE MORE SECURITY RELATIVES MAKING THEIR WAY THROUGH AIRPORT TERMINAL PEOPLE STANDING IN AIRPORT TERMINAL VARIOUS OF RELATIVES AND ARRIVALS FROM AN UNSCHEDULED FLIGHT FROM ISTANBUL IN VIP LOUNGE VARIOUS OF FAMILIES OF INJURED VICTIMS ARRIVING AND WALKING PAST JOURNALISTS
- Embargoed: 14th March 2009 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Netherlands
- City:
- Country: Netherlands
- Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
- Reuters ID: LVABCCEXV0QVFJD3RDZR6D54CFEI
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: A Turkish Airlines plane with 134 passengers and crew aboard crashed in light fog while trying to land at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Wednesday (February 25), killing nine people and injuring dozens.
The airliner lay in three parts, with the tail section of the fuselage ripped off, and a wide crack just behind the cockpit. The engines had broken off and no fire was visible.
The plane broke up when it collided with the ground north of a runway at Schiphol, which is 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Amsterdam's centre.
Survivors were rushed to hospitals in Amsterdam as well as nearby Haarlem and other cities.
Officials said some 84 people were taken to hospitals, including 25 who were severely hurt, when flight TK 1951 from Istanbul crashed into a field short of a runway at Schiphol, Europe's fifth-largest airport by passenger volume.
Six were in critical condition.
"The captain started shouting, I though it was a joke. While he was shouting the plane's nose dived and then rose a bit again. I thought 'What kind of a joke is this?', and we crashed," said one unidentified survivor from hospital.
"I looked behind me and I saw the rear end of the plane was broken. It turned into ruins, everything fell onto people from the ceilings like iron, little pieces, luggage. The ones at the rear end of the plane were all lowered. I threw myself out ... I was afraid that it would explode,"
the survivor said.
The bodies of three crew members, left in the cockpit amid the plane's wreckage for investigation, were later taken out. Dutch media said the pilot and co-pilot were among the dead.
Officials said they had found the plane's flight data recorder and that it would be analysed.
Earlier, Dutch officials said 135 people were on board the plane, but that was revised to 134.
At least four Americans, who work for the plane's manufacturer Boeing, were on the plane, an official said.
Relatives of the victims of the Turkish Airlines plane, which crashed while trying to land at Schiphol airport arrived in Amsterdam late on Wednesday.
The crash was the 11th accident involving a Turkish Airlines flight in the past 20 years, the NLR Air Traffic Safety Institute in Amsterdam said in a statement. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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