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Woman who fell out of plane identified

plane
The DeHavilland Twin Otter DHC-6 in a hangar in San Jose, California, on Friday  

SACRAMENTO, California (CNN) -- The body of a woman believed to have fallen out of a plane in flight has been found, Sacramento police said.

The Sacramento County Coroner's office told CNN the woman is Elisabeth Mathilde Otto, 31, a native of the Netherlands. A spokeswoman for the coroner's office said Otto had lived in Germany for the past six years and had only been in the U.S. for about six weeks, where she lived in San Francisco.

The plane was about 2,000 feet up Thursday night when she reportedly fell out of the rear door.

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Police said a resident three miles from the Sacramento Executive Airport found the body of the blond, dark-coated woman in a nearby field Friday afternoon.

Lydia Gonzales, who called police to tell them about the body her neighbors found in a field near her house, was shocked to hear that the woman had fallen from a plane.

"She fell from an airplane? Oh my God," Gonzales sobbed. "I thought she had been shot in the head." Gonzales said the woman's body was twisted on the ground, and she had severe damage to her head.

"I hope I never see anything like that again in my life," she said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has ruled out foul play, saying Otto either committed suicide or was the victim of a bizarre accident.

The Federal Aviation Administration, meanwhile, ruled out the possibility that a mechanical malfunction caused the door to open, FAA spokesman Jerry Snyder said.

Authorities were told the incident occurred during a shuttle flight in California from Roseville, near Sacramento, to San Jose. There were two pilots and five employees of the computer maker Hewlett-Packard aboard the DeHavilland DHC-6 turboprop.

Shortly after takeoff, the pilot noticed a warning light that indicated the plane's rear door was open. He made a precautionary landing at Sacramento Executive Airport. The door was checked and the plane took off again.

chopper
A helicopter flies over Sacramento, California, in search of the missing Hewlett-Packard employee  

Several minutes later, passengers reported feeling a "whoosh" or sudden breeze, said FBI information officer Andy Black. A male passenger said he turned around and saw the door open and a female passenger falling out.

"They noticed that there was a problem with the door and we're told that a female reportedly jumped," Snyder said.

According to Black, the man said he lunged over his seat and grabbed the woman's arm and shoulder in an attempt to pull her back into the plane, but he couldn't hold on.

When the plane's co-pilot noticed the warning light illuminated again and went back into the cabin to close the door, the noise from the plane was apparently so loud that the male passenger couldn't tell him what had happened.

"It appears that due to the sound and the noise, (the co-pilot) was unable to understand what the passenger was trying to tell him," Black said.

A DeHavilland DHC-6 turboprop is very noisy during flight, a pilot familiar with it told CNN.

When the plane landed in San Jose, the passenger was finally able to tell the pilots what had happened. Black said that was the explanation for why the first 911 call was made 45 minutes after the landing.

Hewlett-Packard has not confirmed the woman's identity, saying only that she worked in the company's purchasing department.

"We are deeply concerned and are helping authorities to determine what happened," the company said in a statement Friday.

Reuters contributed to this report.



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