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Click to listen control tower clearing plane for landing
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"It is a real wreck," Fred Sanders, a spokesman for the Dutch Safety Board told AFP. "That so many people were able to walk out was truly remarkable. Some have called it a miracle."Â Â
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Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim has also described the death toll as a "miracle".
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The Boeing 737-800 jet, carrying 127 passengers and seven crew, crashed into a muddy field short of the runway at
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Witnesses described seeing the tail of the jet hit the edge of a busy road in light fog and drag along the ground before the plane broke in three on impact.
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The engines were found some 100 meters from the rest of the wreckage.
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Of the nine dead, three were crew members of Turkish nationality, officials said. The other six, as well as four of the six critically injured, had yet to be identified.
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He also announced that those on board the plane included 53 Dutch and 51 Turkish citizens, a German, seven Americans, three Britons, one Bulgarian, a Finnish citizen, an Italian and a Taiwanese. The nationalities of fifteen had yet to be determined.
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"The identities of the deceased will only be released once the next-of-kin have been informed," Weterings said.
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Sanders said that casualties had been reduced by the fact that the plane did not catch fire when it crashed.
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"It may have something to do with the fact that it came down in a muddy field rather than on a concrete road or on a landing strip where sparks would have increased the chances of a fire."
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The way the plane fell may indicate that it "had lost its forward momentum, that there was no motor function," he added.
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Initial investigations at the crash scene would take a few days, then the wreckage would be moved away. An interim report on the causes of the crash could be released in weeks.
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Accident investigators worked all night at the crash site looking for clues, Rob Stenacker, a spokesman for the Schiphol police told AFP.
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About 40 investigators were taking part in the probe led by the Dutch Safety Board, supported by police teams and experts from around the country.
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A large white tent had been erected near the crash site Thursday, with investigators in white suits and face masks swarming in and out of the wreck.
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The two black boxes, meanwhile, have been sent for analysis in
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Sixty-seven relatives of those on the ill-fated flight TK 1951 arrived at Schiphol on a special flight from
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Turkish newspapers criticized Turkish Airlines (THY) and the Turkish government for their handling of the aftermath, accusing them of creating a separate "crisis".
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While Dutch investigators were still combing the wreckage Wednesday afternoon, the airline and Turkish transport ministry announced that all on board had survived the accident.
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The popular Vatan newspaper called the announcement a "scandal," while Aksam said the crash aftermath "turned from celebration to torture" for relatives.
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Turkish Airlines last deadly accident was in 2003 when a domestic flight to the southeastern city of
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A Schiphol spokeswoman said the Polderbaan landing strip, near the wreckage, was still closed Thursday, but air traffic was back to normal.
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The last accident at Schiphol happened in 2006, when a Boeing 737 of Dutch carrier KLM veered off the runway in heavy rain. There were no deaths.
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