Turkish Airlines 737-8 down in Amsterdam

[Trevor Sinclair]

Breaking news. Not much known. Stills on Sky News.

[Anthony T]

A Turkish airlines B737-800 crashed while landing this morning at Amsterdam-Schiphol.

For more info : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7909683.stm

Anthony T

[Michael Cleary]

Seems that ASN has already got the rego.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20090225-0

[Trevor Sinclair]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Turkish-Airlines-Plane-Has-Crashed-While-Trying-To-Land-At-Amsterdams-Schipol-Airport/Article/200902415229361

[Ryan Hothersall]

Yes it is TC-JGE that crashed.

I was fortunate to see it in happier times at MAN a few years ago.

http://myaviation.net/?pid=00449867

[Philip Argy]

Here's what airport-data.com has on TC-JGE:
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/TC-JGE.html

[Joseph Saragozza.]

RIP to the victims.

[damien b]

A faulty Altimeter seems to be the cause of the crash

From news.com.au

Altimeter fault behind plane crash
From correspondents in The Hague
Agence France-Presse
March 05, 2009 04:46am

A FAULTY altimetre caused the crash last week of a Turkish Airlines plane as it approached Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, killing nine people and injuring more than 80, investigators said overnight.

The instrument relayed the wrong data to the automatic pilot, causing it to throttle back the engines as if the plane was just about to touch down, when it was really well short of the runway and still descending.

The pilots, who were among those killed in the February 25 crash, reacted too late to a stall warning and failed to pull the aircraft up in time, Dutch Safety Board president Peter van Vollenhoeven said.

Mr Van Vollenhoeven said bad weather, producing low cloud and fog, probably prevented the crew seeing the ground and realising they were too high.

They apparently discounted the altimetre fault, which had occurred twice before in the same aircraft, he said.

"The voice recorder and the black box, both of which are in the hands of the Safety Board, show that an irregularity occurred during the descent, at 1950 feet (around 700m)", he said.

"At a height of 1950 feet the left radio altimetre suddenly showed a change in altitude - from 1950 feet to minus eight feet - and passed this on to the automatic pilot.

"This change had a particular impact upon the automatic throttle system which provides more or less engine power" during the descent.

"The voice recorder has shown that the crew were notified that the left radio altimetre was not working correctly. Provisional data indicates that this signal was not regarded to be a problem," Mr Van Vollenhoeven said.

"In practice, the plane responded to this sudden change as though it was at an altitude of just a few metres above the Polderbaan and engine power was reduced.

"It seems that the automatic system assumed that it was in the final stages of the flight."

When the aircraft slowed to minimum flying speed warning signals were given, the Safety Board chief said.

"The black box shows that full power was then applied immediately. However, this was too late too recover the flight, the aircraft was too low and consequently, the Boeing crashed one kilometre short of the runway."

The tail of the Boeing 737-800, en route from Istanbul to Amsterdam with 127 passengers and seven crew, hit the ground at 175km/h and the plane broke into three pieces.

Five Turks and four Americans among the passengers and crew were killed and 86 hurt, of whom 28 were still in hospital overnight.

Mr Van Vollenhoeven said the Safety Board had warned Boeing of the risks of using the automatic pilot with a faulty altimetre, and asked the US plane builder to check if the problem had also occurred in normal flight.