A BRITISH woman was among three people killed when a KLM plane bound

for Cardiff crashed after take-off from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport

yesterday.

Holland's national carrier said the Dutch pilot, Captain G. Lievaart,

37, and two passengers were among the dead and that 13 of the 24 people

on board were seriously hurt.

The Foreign Office named the dead British woman as Mrs L. Samuel. Her

husband was also on board, and suffered injuries which were not

life-threatening. It was believed he did not know his wife had been

killed.

The other passenger who died was Mr V. Neo, who is thought to be

Singaporean.

Apart from Mrs Samuel, at least five other Britons were injured when

Cityhopper flight KL 433 crash-landed at Holland's biggest airport at

around 2.50pm, 30 minutes after take-off.

The Saab 340B, carrying 21 passengers, who were mostly British, and

three crew, was struck by engine problems over the North Sea and turned

back to Amsterdam.

As the Dutch pilot attempted to land the twin turbo-prop aircraft at

Schiphol it suddenly veered to the right and, as the wing hit the

ground, it broke up on muddy farmland, 300 yards from the runway.

The airport and the motorway alongside it were closed during the

emergency, but air services were operating again within an hour. Rescue

was hindered by the absence of a road to the site, which is surrounded

by farmland.

Survivor Marijke de Spa, 36, said there was no panic as the plane

turned back. ''Everything seemed normal, but as we came down the plane

veered to the right and dropped like a brick,'' she added.

Some reports said there may have been an explosion in the starboard

engine of the plane.

Gusting winds may have made the pilot lose control, one aerospace

expert said. Mr David Learmount, of aerospace industry journal Flight

International, said: ''It has emerged that the wind was very gusty and

squally, changing speed and direction quite quickly . . . in those

conditions if you don't get it exactly right things can go very wrong.''

A British couple were taken to Leiden University Hospital, 12 miles

from Schiphol. Duty surgeon John Delemare said John Cook, 69, and his

wife Valerie, 64, from Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan, both suffered minor

injuries. Three other unnamed British men were also treated for minor

injuries at Slotervaart Hospital, outside Amsterdam.

The wreckage was cordoned off last night as Dutch crash investigators

began their inquiry. The aircraft's nose was destroyed and the fuselage

was virtually split in two.

More than 200 of the Saab 340s had been delivered within about 18

months of it first becoming available in 1989, and many more are on

order.

Holland endured its worst air disaster when, on October 4, 1992, 47

people died after an El Al Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed into two tower

blocks in an Amsterdam suburb.