Dutch investigate fatal Turkish Airlines crash

[February 26, 2009]  AMSTERDAM (AP) -- Investigators took detailed photos of the wreckage of a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 and analyzed black box recordings Thursday, trying to piece together why the plane lost speed and crashed into a field, killing nine people and injuring 86.

Flight TK1951 from Istanbul fell out of the sky about two miles (three kilometers) short of the runway at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on Wednesday morning, smashing into three pieces and spraying luggage and debris across a muddy farmer's field. It was carrying 134 passengers and crew.

Despite the catastrophic impact, the wreckage did not burn and dozens of people walked away with only minor injuries. Emergency services evacuated the injured to nearby hospitals -- six were still in critical condition on Thursday.

Fred Sanders, spokesman for the Dutch Safety Authority, said the flight's data recorders and voice tapes have already been sent to Paris, where crash investigation experts have special equipment to analyze the recordings. He said that study would take several days.

"Another team is on the location today, taking photos of the wreckage and assembling information from various sources," he said.

Investigators in white overalls and blue helmets clambered in and out of the wreckage Thursday while others inspected the remains of the plane's two engines.

Although both pilots died in the crash, other members of the crew, passengers and witnesses on the ground would be interviewed about what happened, Sanders said.

Investigators will explore a wide range of possible causes, ranging from weather-related factors to insufficient fuel, navigational errors, pilot fatigue or bird strikes. Sanders said a preliminary result may be made public soon, although the full report will not be ready for months.

Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said a Turkish team of experts had left for the Netherlands to assist in the investigation. He also paid tribute to the pilot for minimizing casualties by landing on the soft field.

"I would like to commemorate the pilot, who at the cost of his own life, ensured that human casualties were low," Yildirim said.

One survivor, Jihad Alariachi, said there was no warning from the cockpit to brace for landing before the ground loomed up through the mist and drizzle.

"We braked really hard, but that's normal in a landing. And then the nose went up. And then we bounced ... with the nose aloft" before the final impact, she said.

Witnesses on the ground said the plane dropped from about 90 meters (300 feet).

Airport police spokesman Rob Stenacker said information about the passengers who died would be released at a press conference later Thursday.

Dutch authorities said there were 72 Turks and 32 Dutch citizens on board, as well as several other nationalities. Four American Boeing employees traveling on business were also aboard the plane, according to company spokesman Jim Proulx.

Families of Turkish victims arrived on a chartered flight from Istanbul late Wednesday.

Of the injured survivors, six were in critical condition, 25 were seriously hurt and 24 had slight injuries as of Thursday morning, Stenacker said.

A retired pilot who listened to a radio exchange between air traffic controllers and the aircraft shortly before the crash said he didn't hear anything unusual.

"Everything appeared normal," said Joe Mazzone, a former Delta Air Lines captain. "They were given clearance to descend to 7,000 feet."

Just before the end of the 52-second recording, the last thing heard is the controllers giving the tower frequency to the pilots and instructing them to get clearance to land, said Mazzone, who lives in Auburn, Alabama. The pilots acknowledged the instruction.

There was no way to tell from the Web recording if there was more communication between the aircraft and the officials at the airport or exactly how long the exchange came prior to the crash. Mazzone said the point where the transmission ended would likely have been two to four minutes before the plane would have normally landed.

Sanders said the exchange was part of the investigation.

Weather at the airport at the time was cloudy with a slight drizzle.

Turkish Airlines chief Temel Kotil said the captain, Hasan Tahsin, was an experienced former air force pilot. Turkish officials said the plane was built in 2002 and last underwent thorough maintenance on Dec. 22.

It was the deadliest crash in the Netherlands since a vintage DC3 crashed in a shallow sea on Sept. 25, 1996, killing 32 people. The country's worst crash came on Oct. 4, 1992 when an El Al cargo Boeing 747 slammed into an apartment block near Schiphol killing 43 people in the plane and on the ground.

Turkish Airlines has had several serious crashes since 1974, when 360 people died in the crash of a DC-10 near Paris after a cargo door came off. More recently, in 2003, 75 died when an RJ-100 missed the runway in heavy fog in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir.

[Associated Press; By TOBY STERLING]

Associated Press writers Mike Corder in The Hague, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Airlines Writer Harry R. Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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