THE HAGUE
A "faulty" altimeter blamed to have played a role in the fatal crash of a Turkish passenger plane in February 2009 in the Netherlands malfuncitoned and was fixed over a dozen times in a year before the accident happened, according to a Dutch official.
Wilma Mansveld, Dutch state secretary for infrastructure and the environment, said Tuesday the left radio altimeter of the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 had malfunctioned 16 times and it was fixed either by rebooting or replacing the antennas.
Manveld's remarks were in response to a written question by a Dutch lawmaker.
On February 25, the Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from Istanbul to Amsterdam with 127 on board crashed while making a final approach to the strip at Schiphol Airport, killing nine people including four of the crew members and wounding nearly 100 passengers.
A Dutch aviation safety board blamed the plane's left radio altimeter for the accident.
A Dutch prosecutor closed the investigation last year, citing that no crime had been committed.
