The Boeing Co. said two of its employees were among nine people who died when a Turkish Airlines jetliner crashed into a muddy field in the Netherlands.
The company said late Thursday that the U.S. State Department also confirmed that a third Boeing employee is among the injured.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on their Web site Thursday that three Boeing employees were among those killed. A fourth employee was critically injured, the P-I said.
Boeing previously said four of its employees were aboard the Boeing 737-800 that was carrying 135 people when it crashed Wednesday about two miles short of the runway at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
The Boeing statement said the status of the fourth employee has not been officially confirmed.
Boeing has identified the four employees as Ronald Richey, John Salman, Ricky Wilson and Michael Hemmer, all from the Seattle area. The statement does not specify which were killed or injured.
Engine trouble may have caused the Turkish Airlines crash, the head of the agency investigating the accident said Thursday. Officials identified the dead as five Turks and four Americans.
Flight TK1951 from Istanbul crashed about one mile short of the runway at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on early Wednesday, smashing into three pieces and spraying luggage and debris across a field.
Chief investigator Pieter van Vollenhoven said the airliner had fallen almost directly from the sky, which pointed toward the plane’s engines having stopped. He said a reason for that had not yet been established.
Spokeswoman Sandra Groenendal of the Dutch Safety Authority said engine failure was still only “one of the possible scenarios” for the crash.
Van Vollenhoven said an analysis of the plane’s flight data recorders in Paris could be completed as early as today, but his agency would probably not make a preliminary finding until next week.
“We hope to have a firmer grip as soon as possible,” he said, adding that the information retrieved from the recorders was of high quality.
Survivors said engine noise seemed to stop, the plane shuddered and then simply fell out of the sky tail-first. Witnesses on the ground said the plane dropped from about 300 feet.
Haarlemmermeer mayor Theo Weterings said Thursday that investigators now say 135 passengers and crew were on the flight, not 134 as previously believed, which was one reason it had taken so long to account for the dead.
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