Analysis of the crash of TK 1951 using CATS

On February 25, 2009, flight TK 1951, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Turkish Airlines, crashed approximately 1.5 km before the intended runway at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. On board were 135 people—128 passengers and 7 crew. Of these 9 were killed and 86 were injured. The aircraft was destroyed. The official inquiry into the cause of the accident is being conducted by the Dutch Safety Board (Onderzoeksraad Voor Veiligheid, OvV). Prior to the accident the Netherlands Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management had already embarked on a project to model the accident genesis of air transport accidents with the aim of quantifying the risks of air traffic and supporting the development of further measures and methods to reduce these risks. In this paper information regarding the accident is confronted with an analysis using the Causal model for Air Transport Safety (CATS). This enables drawing of some more theoretical conclusions about the accident and about the validity of CATS.