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Flight TK1951 was within sight of the runway on its final approach to Schiphol airport when, without warning, it seemed to fall out of the sky and crashed tail-first into a field with the loss of at least nine lives.

Survivors described last night how, in a matter of seconds, the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 from Istanbul to Amsterdam plummeted to the ground and split into three, leaving 84 of the 134 people on board injured, many seriously, and the two pilots and a trainee pilot dead.

Investigators refused to speculate why the aircraft had descended too soon, or to comment on suggestions that its tail smashed into the ground as it tried to regain height or tried to execute an emergency landing. Dutch officials ruled out terrorism as a possible cause of the crash.

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A British mother, Susan Lord, her Turkish husband, Jakavus Labeij, and their daughters, Sofia and Lisa, were among those who escaped, The Times understands.

One of the passengers, Tancer Mutlucan, a bank executive, said from his hospital bed: “The pilot had announced that we would be landing in 15 minutes. Then about seven or eight minutes later we just crashed. There was not even time to worry about what was happening.

“First we thought it was just a violent landing but then we suddenly descended and there was impact. We suddenly found ourselves in a field.”

The Turkish Transport Minister said that it had been a miracle that more were not killed and that, perhaps because of the muddy conditions, there had been no fire or explosion as the two engines broke off.

“The chance of survival in plane accidents is close to zero. And this is a miracle,” Binali Yildirim said. “The fact that the plane crashed on soft ground and that there was no fire decreased the death toll.”

The emergency services at Schiphol, Europe’s fifth-busiest airport, went into action immediately as the aircraft skided to a halt about 250 metres from the perimeter fence, less than a kilometre from the runway and next to the busy A9 highway, at 10.31am. The injured were taken to 11 hospitals, including an emergency army field hospital set up in Utrecht.

Officials said that 25 people were seriously wounded, with six in a critical condition last night.

Tomas Friedhoff, a student who was cycling past, said the aircraft appeared to have lost power. “The plane was nose up and the tail section at a 45-degree angle,” he said. “The tail section came down first, and broke off.

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