Telegraph now reporting 5 fatalities. :sad:

Just speaking to a friend in Holland, at SPL. Eye wittness reports are that it hit the ground tail first in a high nose attitude.... which makes sense looking at the photos....

For those who understand Dutch more here.Scroll to the bottom for more photos

FWIW A press conference starting about now

pitch oscilliations
 

Heard on radio station "Noord Holland": an eyewitness driving on the highway at the time reported seeing the aircraft making repeated and quite heavy pitch oscilliations before crashing very hard tail first.

The radio station also has people at the scene who heard from emergency workers reported that the pilots were found "slammed forward in obviously very serious condition". Inside the aircraft many passengers were found to be stuck in between seats and had to be liberated by the firebrigade.

Escape Slides
 

Escape slides need to drop a significant distance below the door sill before auto inflation. It is therefore quite possible that in this instance that did not happen though the slide package would still "flop" out onto ground if doors still armed.

ATC tapes?
 

Several frequencies of EHAM are available live on Listen to Live Air Traffic Control Communications | LiveATC.net (just happened to listen in yesterday) - but not sure if the relevant sections of the tape would be available on their archives. They did post the tape of the time immediately after the crash though:

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/EH...Post-Crash.mp3

In case anyone recorded it just before and during the accident please post a link or file.

Thx,
Uncle Maxwell

Bridge builder, there was probably no time for a "Brace brace" call. The crew were probably very busy. Obviously if you know that there is a chance that things may be uncomfortable you will plan for a "Brace brace" call. This aircraft appears to be very late in the approach close to the ground when something catastrophic occurred. Not much time for planning anything.

Sky reporting five fatalities but not confirmed. This according to Dutch TV.

Dutch tv reporting 3 of the fatalities were in the flight deck.. :(

Still saying there were at least 5 people killed with more possible bodies still in the aircraft..

Busz
 

Quote:

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Being a 737-800 pillot myself, I wonder if for some reason the auto throttle had been disengaged and the crew did not notice. The speed reduces and the crew did not notice, stall warning, apply power, aggressive pitch/power couple which leads to a further stall. If they were unable to recover from that then it could have come down. It happened at another airline recently, although without an actual crash occurring.

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I suspect you are referring to this one? here

Update - reporting 6 pax and 3 crew didn't survive.

Press conference now at 1330.

NOS reporting 9 fatalities, including three in the cockpit.

Crash Survivability
 

Thanks One Post.

The rear facing seat debate, which was underway post Kegworth, may well begin again.

Reported 9 fatalaties including 3 Flight Deck Crew.

Sky News UK

The close ups show that the R1 door gert bar is in the disarmed postion, with the aircraft that close to soil(post crash) it would not make a lot of difference either way, the aircraft appears to have landed with low forward airspeed and tail first resulting in a cantilever nose pitch down, this would be arrested by the gear/engine pods, before they detached likely causing the shear line forward of the wing, with the forward section then impacting the ground and the upward damage aft of cock pitt area.

Someone appears to be sat next to the wing using a mobile phone.

It won't be a no fuel situation, birds are posible but unlickley at 10:30 local, dusk dawn are the main risk at AMS

This has the hallmarks of being very slow and at the back of the drag curve for what ever reason

Regretfully Sky News reporting 9 casualties, inc three on the flightdeck, but exact numbers not confirmed.

More reports being provided and a news conference from Schipol at 12.30 GMT

Oh dear! Commercial pilot giving advice on Sky News saying that its a 2 man flight deck and 3 died in flight deck so 'who was thrid person'...i guess suggesting terrorism, Sky News would love that... Could be any reason-familiarisation nflight for example.

Would suggest 3 in the Flightdeck, more likely to be training going on than anything else ?

winglets on both sides sheered off halfway
 

What is absolutely remarkable is that the upper parts of the winglets on both wings seem to be sheered off.

Would that suggest that the a/c flipped over before coming to rest ?

Could explain why, as apparently reported, the a/c is lies with its nose 180° towards runway 18R. And it could explain the very heavy impact damage on the underside of the forward part of the a/c