Turkish plane crashes near Amsterdam, 9 dead

At least nine people were killed and more than 80 injured when a Turkish Airways plane broke in three as it crash-landed at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Wednesday, officials and passengers said.

The local mayor told a press conference that nine people were
known to have died -- including three among the seven crew members.

Istanbul governor Muammer Guler said earlier the death toll had
been revised upwards to 10, but Haarlemmermeer interim mayor Michel Bezuijen said the official figure remained at nine.

The cause of the crash was still not clear, Bezuijen told reporters.

Dutch television showed what appeared to be covered bodies on the ground near the crashed single-aisle Boeing 737 jetliner.

Turkish Airlines (THY) chief executive officer Candan Karlitekin told a televised press conference in Istanbul that the nine victims also included members of the plane's crew.

The crumpled plane lay in three parts, with the tail section of the fuselage broken off, and a wide crack in the fuselage just behind the cockpit. The airliner had not caught fire.

Broke up on impact

The plane, on a flight from Istanbul, broke up when it hit the ground north of a runway at Schiphol, which is 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Amsterdam's centre.

One passenger aboard the plane told Turkish television that the plane's tail hit the edge of a nearby highway in the landing before ploughing into the fields.

"We were at an altitude of 600 meters (2000 feet) when we heard the announcement that we were landing," Kerem Uzel told the NTV news channel.

"We suddenly descended a great distance as if the plane fell into turbulence. The plane's tail hit the ground ... It slid from the side of the motorway into the field."

Tuncer Mutluhan, the representative of a private Turkish bank in the Netherlands, said it was a matter of seconds between the realization that the plane was in trouble and the actual landing.

We suddenly descended a great distance as if the plane fell into turbulence. The plane's tail hit the ground

Passenger

"While we were making a normal landing, it felt like we fell into a void, the plane lost control, suddenly plunged and crashed," he told NTV. "It all happened in three or five seconds ... There was panic after that."

The crash appeared to be the worst since an El Al cargo plane crashed into high-rise apartment blocks in a southeastern suburb of Amsterdam in October 1992, killing 43 people, 39 of them on the ground.

The 1992 cargo plane was a Boeing 747. It ploughed into the buildings, setting them on fire, shortly after takeoff after two engines had broken off.

Schiphol is Europe's fifth largest airport by passenger numbers.

While we were making a normal landing, it felt like we fell into a void, the plane lost control, suddenly plunged and crashed

Passenger