Update: Crash of Flight 1951

A Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 (TC-JGE) crashed short of landing at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on Feb. 25, killing at least nine of the 135 people aboard (128 passenger and seven crew) and injuring more than 50 others. according to local officials and the airline.

The accident, which happened in good weather, killed both of the pilots flying the GE/Snecma CFM-56-powered jetliner and a third junior pilot observing. Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from Istanbul was on final approach to land when the twinjet slammed into a muddy field and broke into three pieces.

Media reports quote witnesses saying that the commercial transport  on final suddenly dropped “like a stone” about 650 feet short of the airport’s perimeter fence. The number of fatalities might have been higher had it not been for the fact that there was no post-impact fire. An official with the Dutch Safety Board said Wednesday night that the cockpit flight recorder had been retrieved and was being sent to Paris for analysis.

In 1992, Schiphol Airport was the scene of another fatal air crash when an El-Al cargo plane hit a high-rise building in the Amsterdam suburb of Bijlmermeer, unleashing an inferno in which 43 people died.