Altimeter blamed for Schiphol crash

A false reading from a faulty altimeter contributed to the crash near Amsterdam's Schiphol airport last week that killed nine people, investigators said today.

The plane was landing on automatic pilot and the problem with the altimeter caused an autopilot to slow the Turkish Airlines jet sharply short of the runway, the Dutch investigation found.

The flight carrying 135 passengers and crew crashed into a field less than a mile from the runway, killing nine people on 25 February. The pilots were among the dead.

One of the plane's altimeters had registered that the plane was flying below sea level and caused the autopilot to reduce power rapidly before the crash, officials said

The Boeing 737-800's flight recorders showed false readings from the same altimeter on two flights before the crash, chief investigator Pieter van Vollenhoven said .

The Dutch Safety Authority said it had issued a warning to Boeing as a result of its investigation. Boeing said it was reminding all operators of its 737s to monitor primary flight instruments during critical phases.

The deputy chairman of the Turkish pilots' association, Ahmet Izgi, dismissed the Dutch findings as "not satisfactory" and said it would be unusual for the pilots not to react to a false altimeter reading in time to save the plane.