PARIS: A Turkish Airlines jet carrying 135 people crashed into a field on its approach to Schiphol Airport outside Amsterdam on Wednesday, killing nine people and injuring 50, airport authorities said.

Television pictures showed the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, lying fractured into three parts after it slammed into the grass about 3 miles from the runway. The aircraft did not catch fire.

The plane, Turkish Airlines flight TK1951, left Istanbul at 8:22 a.m. on Wednesday.

The crash took place in calm weather with a light drizzle. Unlike a deadly accident in Madrid last summer when a Spanair flight crashed while taking off, no fire broke out during Wednesday's crash.

The Turkish aircraft would have been low on fuel as it approached its destination.

As rescue operations got underway at the crash site, 80 passengers were evacuated from the plane, Binali Yildirim, the Turkish transportation minister, said on NTV, a private television station in Turkey.

"The plane has been through all required security controls," Yildirim said.

Tuncer Mutlucan, a passenger who survived the crash, told NTV, "It was the back of the plane that hit the ground. We left the plane from the back. My colleague and I saw people stuck in between seats as we were trying to leave and we tried to help them."

" It all happened in something like ten seconds," Mutlucan said

Candan Karlitekin, the chairman of Turkish Airlines, said most of the injured were seated at the back of the plane.

"There was nothing extraordinary about the weather conditions, vision capability was 4,500 meters. Around 500 meters away from the landing strip, the plane landed in a field. The plane was broken into three parts, as you all saw in pictures."

Kotil said that the pilot, Hasan Tahsin Ari, was one of the airline's most experienced pilots. The company was planning a flight from to Amsterdam from Istanbul for relatives of the crash victims.