Amsterdam air crash kills 9

At least nine people died and more than 50 were injured today when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed while attempting to land at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

Although the Boeing 737 broke into three parts, it did not catch fire, which is likely to have saved many lives. At least 130 people were on board.

The plane, Turkish Airlines flight 1951 which had left Istanbul at about 6.30 this morning, crashed just short of the runway outside the perimeter of the airport, near the A9 motorway.

There was initial confusion over the numbers of dead and injured with the Dutch authorities at first claiming that no lives had been lost. There were also discrepancies about the number of people on board, with the Turkish transport minister saying there were 143 and Candan Karlitekin, the chairman of Turkish Airlines, telling a news conference in Istanbul there were 127 passengers, including a baby, and seven crew.

Television pictures showed that the tail section of the plane had broken off and there was another large crack just behind the nose.

The aircraft was soon surrounded by scores of fire engines and ambulances from the airport. Survivors were taken to a sports hall to be reunited with relatives. Dutch television said rescuers had been hampered getting to the scene as the field had recently been ploughed.

"I saw the plane lying there in three pieces," Nikolai van der Smagt, who works for a telecom company near Schiphol airport, told BBC News. He said he was driving past moments after the crash and saw the plane surrounded by large clouds of brown dust and grey smoke.

"The first people were just getting off the plane and they looked confused. There was a lot a dust, but no fire," he said. As rescue operation began, flights to and from the airport were briefly suspended but resumed later in the morning.

The Dutch government said it had no details of the identities of the dead and injured. "Our thoughts go out to the people who were in the plane and of course also to those who are now waiting in uncertainty to hear about the fate of their loved ones," a statement said. "Many families in the Netherlands and also in Turkey are waiting in fear."

There was no immediate word on what caused the crash, which happened in light mist about 60 metres from of the airport perimeter. Terrorism was said to have been ruled out. It is the worst air accident in the Netherlands since an El Al cargo plane crashed into high-rise apartment blocks in a suburb of Amsterdam in October 1992, killing 43 people, 39 on the ground. It crashed shortly after take-off when two engines broke off.

The last crash involving a Turkish Airlines plane was in 2003 when at least 65 people died in eastern Turkey.

Schiphol airport has six runways and one major passenger terminal. In 2007, it handled 47million passengers, making it the fifth busiest airport in Europe.