Monday December 18 5:12 PM ET
Woman's Fall From California Plane Ruled a Suicide

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A Dutch woman who plunged to her death during the flight of a California commuter plane committed suicide, the Sacramento County coroner's office ruled on Monday.

Elisabeth Otto, 29, died on Thursday after falling some 2,000 feet from a twin-engine plane ferrying employees of computer maker Hewlett-Packard Inc. from the Sacramento area to San Jose, California.

The coroner found that Otto apparently threw herself from the aircraft in mid-flight after opening up the plane's emergency door and fighting off the efforts of at least one fellow passenger to save her.

``The case has been classified as a suicide,'' a coroner's spokeswoman said on Monday.

Otto had reportedly been despondent since moving to California from Europe with her husband several weeks earlier to take a new job at Hewlett-Packard.

Witnesses on the plane told investigators that one fellow passenger made a desperate effort to save Otto after seeing her poised at the open emergency doorway, grabbing her and holding on as she slipped out of the aircraft.

But the man's grip loosened, and Otto dropped from the plane. Her body was found late on Thursday in a field just south of Sacramento.

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