Memorial held for Turkish plane crash victims in Amsterdam

The survivors joined rescue workers and politicians for the nationally televised service at Schiphol Airport.

As they watched in silence, Turkish and American diplomats, politicians and a representative of Dutch Queen Beatrix placed nine cream-colored roses in a vase - one for each of the five Turks and four Americans killed.

Air traffic and trains to and from the airport are to stop for two minutes during Saturday’s service in a gesture of respect for the victims, AP reported.

After the service, family members were to lay flowers at the site of the crash, where the wreckage was still lying in a field close to a busy highway one kilometer short of the runway.

The Boeing 737-800, en route from Istanbul to Amsterdam with 127 passengers and seven crew members, crashed into a muddy field as it came in to land at Schiphol airport, breaking into three pieces last month. 
 
Nine people were killed, including plane’s Turkish pilots and three Boeing employees, and more than 100 were injured in the incident.
 
Dutch investigators said earlier this week flight TK1951 crashed because a false reading from a faulty altimeter caused the autopilot to sharply slow the plane short of the runway on Feb. 25.

Turkish officials and analysts said the preliminary Dutch findings were "not satisfactory". The Turkish pilots association had earlier claimed that turbulence from a large plane landing at the airport shortly before the doomed flight was the most likely cause of the crash.

"LESSONS TO BE LEARNT" 

Speakers at the memorial service called for lessons to be learnt from the tragedy.

"It is important to accept the facts so that we can learn from them," Home Affairs Minister Guusje Ter Horst was quoted by AFP as saying.

"There are still many questions, but nobody benefits from speculation. I would like to repeat what one survivor has said: The most important thing is to learn the lessons," she said.

"We should be grateful that so many survived," Ter Horst added.

Mayor Theo Weterings, of the Haarlemmermeer municipality under which the airport falls, told mourners that 24 people remained in hospital, one of them in a critical condition.

Schiphol Airport, he added, had a reputation for excellence and safety.

"That a crash now forms part of that reputation is something we do not intend to hide from. It is a black page in a book that we do will not keep closed," he said.

The ambassador of Turkey to the Netherlands, Selahattin Alpar, expressed his government’s condolences with victims.

"We only hope at this stage that international cooperation and solidarity shall prevail and that ... the lessons that we have learnt shall lead us in the future," AFP quoted him as saying.

Michael Gallagher, U.S. charge d’affairs in The Hague, thanked rescuers, who were also present at the service, for their efforts.

"Within minutes Dutch first responders arrived at the scene. They performed brilliantly and we thank you."