Godlike Productions - News: About 150 killed leaving Madrid on Spanair flight

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Sunday, November 23, 2008

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About 150 killed leaving Madrid on Spanair flight

International Herald Tribune

2008-08-20

Nearly 150 people were killed Wednesday when an airliner en route to the Canary Islands swerved off the end of a runway at Madrid's airport during takeoff, Spanish officials said.

The plane, an MD-82, was carrying 178 people, and most were feared dead. A Spanish emergency official, Herbigio Corral, said only 28 people had survived, Reuters reported.

"There were 178 passengers on board, including the crew," said Valentín Narro, a government official at the Interior Ministry's office in Madrid.

The aircraft, Spanair flight JK5022, was cross-listed as Lufthansa LH2554. The plane had been headed to Gran Canaria, in Spain's Canary Islands, a popular vacation destination off the West African coast.

Television footage of the accident, which occurred at 2:45 p.m., showed clouds of white smoke billowing over the runway at Madrid Barajas International Airport. The airport, the fourth-busiest in Europe, ranks just behind Frankfurt in terms of passenger traffic.

Olivia Acosta, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross at Barajas airport, said 22 ambulances were at the scene and that a makeshift hospital had been set up. Teams of therapists were on hand, she said.

Spanair is a troubled low-cost carrier owned by SAS, Scandinavian Airlines System.

The plane model was a Boeing MD-82, a type of MD-80. It is a long, narrow plane with engines mounted to the rear of the fuselage and the tail high in the air.

Most of Spanair's fleet is from the MD-80 family, though it also includes Boeing and Airbus jets.

In April, the Federal Aviation Administration inspected American Airline MD-80s and found a maintenance problem: Wiring bundles had been improperly wrapped and attached inside wheel wells. The airline canceled 3,300 flights.

The wiring is required to be stowed in a way to avoid chafing by moving parts in the wheel well, which could result in an electric short.

SAS said that it was doing "everything possible to help passengers and next of kin and to assist Spanish authorities at this difficult time."

Founded in 1986, Spanair has hubs in Madrid and Barcelona and flies within Spain and the rest of Europe, as well as West Africa.

It lost $81 million in the first half of the year, and SAS has said that it plans to cut a quarter of Spanair's flights and eliminate about 1,000 jobs, or about a third of its employees.

On Wednesday, before word of the crash, Spanair pilots had threatened to go on strike, saying management did not have a plan to fix the carrier's problems.

SAS tried to sell the money-losing airline last year, only to drop the effort in June after it could not find a buyer. Spain's largest airline, Iberia, pulled out of discussions, and later initiated separate merger talks with British Airways.

The airline, which carried 11.2 million passengers last year, is part of the Star Alliance, which also includes United Airlines, Air Canada, SAS and Lufthansa of Germany.

Micheline Maynard contributed reporting.

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