A Turkish Airlines passenger plane with 134 people aboard crashed in light fog while trying to land at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Wednesday, and Dutch television said 5 people had been killed.

"The aircraft crashed in a field outside the airport perimeter," an official at Schiphol, Europe's fourth-busiest airport, said. "All rescue operations are in full swing."    

Dutch television said 5 people had been killed. A news conference was due to take place at Schiphol around 1230 GMT.

Dutch television showed what appeared to be covered bodies on the ground near the crashed single-aisle Boeing 737 jetliner. Eyewitnesses and officials on television also said there were bodies on the ground.

Images showed the crumpled plane in three parts, with the tail section of the fuselage broken off, and a wide crack in the fuselage just behind the cockpit. The airliner had not caught fire.

"We are in the middle of a field now, approximately 5-6 km from the airport," Survivor Mustafa Bahcecioglu told Turkish broadcaster Channel 24. "The majority of the passengers are injured but there are people who are not injured. Around 30 ambulances have come," he said.

Airport officials said the crashed aircraft was a Boeing 737-800, flight TK 1951 from Istanbul.

Earlier, there were conflicting reports on the number of deaths, or whether anyone had died.

In Istanbul, Turkish Airlines chief executive Temel Kotil said nobody on board the flight had died.

Turkish Airlines chairman Candan Karlitekin told a news conference in Istanbul there were 127 passengers, including a baby, on board and seven crew.

A Turkish Airlines spokeswoman said she had no immediate information about the Dutch television report of fatalities.

The plane, on a flight from Istanbul, broke up when it hit the ground several hundred metres north of a runway at Schiphol, which is 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Amsterdam's centre.

At Schiphol airport, 10 flights were delayed and 10 were cancelled, but otherwise operations were as usual.

Survivor Huseyin Sumer told CNN Turk by telephone: "The plane split into three parts. We are calling people to say the situation is not very serious but there might be casualties on the front side of the plane."    

The crash appeared to be the worst since an El Al cargo plane crashed into high-rise apartment blocks in a southeastern suburb of Amsterdam in October 1992, killing 43 people, 39 of them on the ground.

The 1992 cargo plane was a Boeing 747. It ploughed into the buildings, setting them on fire, shortly after takeoff after two engines had broken off. - Reuters