News of: Wednesday, February 25 2009,
A plane of Turkish Airlines crashed this morning, around 10.30 am, along one of the runways of Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
The plane (flight number TK 1951), which came from Istanbul, had 135 people on board (128 passengers and 7 crew members).
Nine persons died in the accident, 86 are injured, of which 6 are in a critical condition.
There are dozens of ambulances around the plane, and various injured people have been brought to hospitals surrounding Schiphol.
Flights to and from Schiphol may be diverted to other airports. Just after the accident all flight traffic was halted for a brief period.
The cause of the crash is still unknown. The plane has landed along the highway A9, and has broken into three pieces.
Officials said there is no indication that it is a terrorist act.
A free (Dutch) phone number has been made available for information by the Nationaal Coördinatiecentrum: 0800-1351. Another information number is 023- 5676 387 (+31 (0)23-5676 387).
The list of people on board has been published by Turkish Airlines on their website.
Some pictures are on the Parool website.
People waiting on the airport, for passengers to arrive, were brought to a sports centre in Badhoevedorp, a village near the airport.
The Schiphol Airport website (http://www.schiphol.nl) is currently unavailable, apparently due to the large number of visitors.
More information will be published here in the course of the day, as it becomes available.
Update 26 Feb:
The nationalities of the 9 people who died in the accident is known. Five of them are Turkish, and 4 are Americans. Three of the Turkish victims were the cockpit crew.
The 6 critically injured victims are still in hospitals. Their nationality has not been made known.
Turkish newspapers have criticized the Turkish government for the fact that right after the crash became known, they issued a statement that nobody had died in the accident.
The Dutch investigation team estimates that by the middle of next week the cause of the accident might be known. The black box and the voice recorder have been recovered, and sent to Paris for investigation.
