Plane broke into three

AMSTERDAM - A TURKISH Airways jet crashed into a muddy field as it came into land at Amsterdam airport on Wednesday killing at least nine people but officials said it was a 'miracle' there were not more victims.

Witnesses described seeing the tail of the Boeing 737-800 hit the edge of a busy road in light fog and drag along the ground before the twin-engine airliner broke into three just short of the Schipol airport runway.

Six people were said to be in critical condition in hospital and another 25 were 'seriously' wounded, Dutch authorities said.

While many among the 127 passengers and seven crew on the flight from Istanbul fought their way out of the mess of tangled wreckage, local residents and car drivers rushed to the scene.

About 40 passengers quickly escaped through a hole in the cabin caused by a wing that was ripped off, one witness told Dutch television channel NOS.

'The chance of survival in plane accidents is close to zero. And this is a miracle,' Turkey's Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said of the death toll, Anatolia news agency reported.

Tuncer Mutluhan, a representative for a Turkish bank in the Netherlands, said everything happened in a flash as the jet approached Schipol on Wednesday morning after a three hour flight.

'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 Turkish television channel NTV.

'It all happened in three or five seconds.... There was panic after that.' About 750 ambulance and fire crew took part in the rescue operation that was quickly set underway. The injured were taken to about 11 different hospitals in the region.

Bodies were at first laid out under white sheets next to the wreckage.

Authorities were identifying the dead late Wednesday, but officials confirmed that three of those killed were crew in the cockpit of flight TK 1951 at the time of the crash.

According to rescue officials, six of the injured were in critical condition. 'We cannot tell at this stage whether they will survive,' said emergency services spokeswoman Ineke van der Zande.

The Turkish transport ministry said the flight carried 78 Turkish nationals and 56 people of other nationalities.

Haarlemmermeer mayor Theo Weterings, whose town includes Schipol, told a press conference the identification of the dead 'will take time', but more information should be available Thursday. -- AFP