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Saturday December 16 1:38 PM ET
Woman Reportedly Despondent Before U.S. Airplane Jump

SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) - A woman who either jumped or fell 2,000 feet to her death out of a California commuter airplane was reportedly despondent after recently moving to the United States from Europe, newspapers said on Saturday.

Officials identified the woman in Thursday's tragic incident as Elisabeth Otto, 31, a Dutch national who had recently moved to the San Francisco area with her husband to take a job at computer maker Hewlett-Packard Inc.

``She was depressed,'' one source close to the investigation told the San Francisco Chronicle. ``She had to deal with change in living here, and she had trouble dealing with the move.

``Her husband was concerned before she even took off that day, thought this sort of thing was a possibility. What a way to commit suicide, if that's what happened.''

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has ruled out foul play in the incident, which occurred on a company commuter flight from the Sacramento area to San Jose on Thursday.

Fellow passengers on the twin-engine turbo prop plane told of a harrowing effort to save Otto, who apparently opened an airplane emergency door in mid-flight and, after wrenching free from the grip of one passenger, either fell or jumped.

Her body was found on Friday in a field just south of Sacramento.

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