Plane down in Amsterdam.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 @ 12:00 PM
Preliminary news coming through says just the one fatality from this crash which occured just an hour ago. The Boeing 737-800 is very similar to those operated by Ryanair and will be fairly new.
From an outsiders view, no fire which is good, but fuel should have been almost down to reserves at that point of the flight anyway. Also I would suggest a tail first quite heavy impact causing the splits in the usual places. All emergency doors are open.
Unfortunately for passengers, planes are not designed like cars to withstand an impact, they are designed to fly and coming down in the wrong place at the wrong time is not something the manufacturers cater for.
Possible but remote causes? Bird strike, no fuel, serious system failure.