A jetliner heading to the popular Canary Islands vacation resort crashed during takeoff Wednesday, turning a wooded area off the end of a runway into a hellish scene of charred bodies and smoldering wreckage. Some 153 were believed dead — Spain's worst air disaster in nearly 25 years. Only 19 people survived the midafternoon crash of the Spanair MD-82 at Madrid's Barajas International Airport, and some were in critical condition, said Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose department oversees civil aviation in Spain.
The airline didn't release a death toll, but said the plane carried 172 crew members and passengers, including two babies and 20 youngsters. There was no word on how many children died. As smoke billowed from the wreckage, dozens of fire trucks and ambulances rushed to help, lining a nearby road and filling a field next to a swath of charred vegetation. Helicopters flew over dumping water on fires. Rescuers rushed the few survivors to hospitals, while emergency workers shrouded the dead in white sheets. One body lay on burned grass, an arm and a leg poking out. Later, a long convoy of black hearses rolled onto the airport grounds to carry bodies to a makeshift morgue set up at Madrid's main convention center — the facility used for relatives to identify bodies after the 2004 Islamic terror bombings that killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains. Spanair, a Spanish company wholly owned by Scandinavian Airlines, said it did not know what caused the accident. Alvarez said investigators ruled out foul play and considered the crash an accident. She said the plane's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been recovered.
While preparing for a first takeoff attempt, the plane's pilot reported a breakdown in a gauge that measures temperature outside the plane. The gauge was fixed, delaying the departure, said Spanair spokeswoman Susana Vergara. It was on the second takeoff attempt that the plane crashed. The accident was Spain's worst air disaster since 1983, when a Boeing 747 operated by the Colombian airline Avianca crashed near Madrid on landing approach, killing 181 people. In 1985, an Iberia Boeing 727 crashed near Bilbao in the Basque region, killing 148 people. The deadliest disaster in aviation history occurred in Spain in 1977. Two fully loaded Boeing 747s collided on a runway in the Canary Islands and a total of 583 people died. Sergio Allard, a Spanair spokesman, said the crashed plane passed an inspection in January and no problems had been reported since then. The plane was 15 years old and has been owned by Spanair the past nine, he said. But it has had a number of fatal accidents, the deadliest of which was a crash of Slovenia's Adria Airways flight in Corsica in 1981, when all 180 people on board perished.
Spanair has a fleet of more than 60 aircraft and runs around 600 flights daily. Crashes during takeoff or landing are some of the most common aviation accidents. In July 2007, 199 people were killed in Brazil's worst air disaster when an Airbus A320 belonging to TAM airlines skidded off the runway at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport and smashed across a road into a gas station and an air cargo building. Five people died and 65 were injured May 30 when an A320 belonging to Grupo Taca skidded off the end of the runway at Toncontin International Airport near the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. [End of report]
It is such a tragic news. I dont like it when I hear any aviation related accidents, especially when there are many casualties. 153 people dead, that is a big number and what is even sadder is that there were two babies on board. Now I dont know if they are among the 19 survivors, but it is terrible to hear the news. I hope they are among the survivors, that would be a huge miracle, but even so the impact of the crash was huge that they would probably be in a critical condition. I think as long as they had survive the crash, there is still some hope that they would live on but right now the details are sketchy and it is not known yet who are the survivors. I doubt that the incident has anything to do with terrorism, like the bombing of trains in Madrid back in the past, it is probably just some unfortunate accident. It is good to hear that the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been recovered. It will certainly be a huge help in assisting in the investigation to what could be the possible reasons for the accident. The sad thing though is that you can't bring the dead back to life but it will help to ensure that such tragic accidents wont be happening again. If it is a human error, then someone should be punished but I dont think that any amount of punishment or compensation will be able to appease the families of the victims.
One possible reason for the high number of casualties I think is probably because it was trying to takeoff and since that is the case, the plane would have a full fuel capacity or nearly full fuel capacity and that is not a good thing if there is any accident because the more fuel there is, the more stronger the impact of the explosion there will be. Anyway, I just hope that the survivors will recover soon. I cant imagine the psychological impact that the incident will have on them. They are really fortunate to survive. Anyway, I would just like to extend my sympathy to the victims of the crash. My thoughts are with the family of the victims.
*The report was taken from Associated Press.
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