At least nine people have been killed and 50 others injured when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed while attempting to land in the Netherlands, Dutch officials have said.
The crash occurred when flight 1951 from Istanbul to Amsterdam, which was carrying more than 130 people, missed the runway at the capital's Schipol Airport.
"Of the 50 people injured, 25 were seriously injured," Michel Bezuijen, mayor of the Haarlemmermeer municipality, where the airport is located, said.
The plane split into three parts after it hit the ground around 3km short of the runway and the cause of the crash is still unclear.
Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the Turkish capital, Ankara, said that the splitting was something intended by the aircraft manufacturers in these types of crash-landings.
Pilot praised
McNaught said there was speculation that the crash was the result of a "misjudged approach", although she stressed it was impossible to establish what caused the accident before examining the in-flight recorders.
David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine, said he was not surprised that the number of casualties appeared to be low because there was no fire.
"Modern airplanes are just much more survivable than [before]... the question with this one is, this is an extremely modern airplane why did it crash at all?" he said.
Chris Yates, an aviation expert with Jane's Defense Weekly magazine, said that because the plane was so close to landing, most passengers would have been wearing seat belts, which may have helped to save lives.
He said it was possible that the plane could have been struck by birds; as was the case in the New York Hudson river crash in January.
"Bird strike is always a potential problem...as we saw with the Hudson crash, bird strike can happen at any point," Yates said.
"When you get birds in the two engines you lose power and all sorts of horrible things can happen."
Canada geese collided with both engines of the US Airways plane that crash landed on New York's Hudson river after losing power. All passengers survived.
McNaught said the pilot, who trained with the Turkish airfare, had been praised for his handling of the crash by the country's transport minister.
PHOTO CAPTION
A Turkish Airlines passenger plane -- with 143 people on board -- has crashed while attempting to land at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.
Al-Jazeera