No cause yet identified for Turkish jet crash at Amsterdam’s Schiphol

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Photo Ed: Turkish Airlines plane crashes in Amsterdam

A Turkish Airlines, or THY, plane crashed while landing at Amsterdam’s main airport yesterday, killing three crew members, six passengers and injuring more than 80.

The plane had 127 passengers including one baby and seven crew members. Six of the injured passengers are in critical condition, while 24 were only slightly injured, a Dutch official said.

The Foreign Ministry said two of three pilots died, but did not reveal their identities. There is conflicting information about the number of deaths. Ten people died according to information from hospitals but the officially confirmed number of casulties is nine.

Fred Sanders of the Dutch Safety Board told AP that the cockpit "recording equipment has been found" and will be sent to Paris for analysis.

The plane left Atatürk Airport in Istanbul at 8:22 a.m. and hit the ground near the Schiphol Airport at 10:40 a.m. The plane broke into three pieces upon impact. Some passengers with light injuries escaped the wreckage on their own. There was neither a fire nor an explosion in the plane. Dutch State Television reported that the plane had asked for permission for an urgent landing.

"We started descending toward the airport and the plane started to shake and then crashed. We did not think that it would fall," said Murath Bahçecioğlu, a survivor of the crash.

"Everything happened in couple of seconds. We were expecting to land on the airfield but we crashed into a field," said another survivor Tuncer Mutlucan, talking to private news channel NTV.

A Dutch witness who saw the crash said the plane was losing speed before the crash and its nose lifted.

Then the front part of the plane suddenly fell down, the plane crashed to the ground and broke into three pieces, reported the private news channel CNNTürk.

The Turkish Ambassador to The Hague Selahattin Alpar said 72 of the passengers were Turkish citizens while 35 of them were Dutch, reported the Anatolia news agency. "It is understood that the plane flew over the highway and crashed into a muddy area. Thank God it did not crashed into the highway. It would have been a huge disaster," he said.

Peter Blaock yesterday morning decided not to take the plane at the last moment, daily Hürriyet’s Web site reported. "I drank alcohol with my friends last night. I did not want to wake up in the morning but my friends took the plane. They are in good health," he said.

Early information mistaken
Turkish officials in their first statements said there was no loss of lives in the crash. The deputy undersecretary of the Transportation Ministry, Suat Hayri Aka, leading the crisis center in the ministry that was founded for the plane crash said there was no loss of lives, but contrary to the ministry’s statement, information about casualties proven by photographs from the scene came from Dutch media reports.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he wished a quick recovery for survivors. "These kind of accidents result in a loss of whole lives. We are lucky the consequences of this crash weren’t worse." When Erdoğan made this statement, the number of casulties was only one.

Meanwhile, Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkanende called Erdoğan and presented his condolences for the losses. Balkanende also visited the scene. Dutch Foreign Minister Camiel Eurlings, talking to private news channel CNNTürk, said the names of the casulties were not clear yet. "They will be disclosed as soon as possible. The first thing to do is save lives and we are now working for that," Eurlings said.

THY has sent family members of passengers to Amsterdam from Ankara and Istanbul. The plane was a Boeing 737-800, one of 52 in the THY fleet. The plane was a 2002 model and had its most recent control checks in December.

There was no problem about the meteorological conditions, the technical situation of the plane or the plane’s descent toward the airfield, according to a statement from the Civil Aviation General Directorate, adding that the cause of the crash was not certain yet.

During its 75-year history, THY has had three accidents on international flights and 18 on domestic flights, according to the Aircraft Crashes Record Office in Switzerland.

Performance doubts lie at accident background
THY's management and worker policy have been under severe criticism in recent years, especially under the management of CEO Temel Kotil, an aeronautical engineer who headed a technical department of the Istanbul municipality in 1990s.

Kotil, in charge of Turkey's biggest airline since 2005, was constantly accused of filling THY ranks with people close to the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

The Aviation Workers' Union, or Hava-iş, lamented the inadequacy of the technical maintenance of Turkish Airlines planes. "Turkish Airlines disregards flight maintenance, while blocking collective agreement efforts," read a statement released by the union a week ago.

Kotil said declarations on the cause of the accident would arrive as they are revealed. Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım said revealing the cause of the accident is a technical matter.

Worse could arrive, experts agree
Turkish Pilot Association president Ziya Yılmaz said the losses were reduced since the plane was about to land. "Plane crashes may have thousands of reasons. Any early comments may mislead people," Yılmaz said. The pilot Tahsin Arısan, reported dead at the accident, has a Turkish Air Force background.

"I do not want to think that the accident is his mistake," Yılmaz noted.

Yılmaz dismissed some Dutch reports that the plane did not have enough fuel.

Aircraft engineers’ association president Tevfik Kırmacı said the accident resulted in fewer deaths than normal because the aircraft landed on soft ground. "Aircraft construction companies purposefully build planes so as to let them break not like an egg, but in big chunks. That way, the losses are minimized," Kırmacı said.

"The reason of the crash is unclear, but I do not think it has anything to do with the wings or a maintenance failure," he said.

A Dutch TV station reported witnesses who saw one of the motors of the plane fall, approximately 2,000 meters from the runway.