45 Killed As SpanAir Jet Swerves At Madrid Airport Runway
A Spanish airliner bound for the Canary Islands swerved off the runway and caught fire during takeoff from the Madrid airport on Wednesday, killing at least 45 people, the Interior Ministry said.
Nineteen of the 164 people on board were seriously injured, according to statements from the airline and the ministry.
It is the height of the summer tourist season in Spain and Spanair flight JK5022 was bound for Las Palmas in the canary Islands, a popular resort off West Africa, the company said.
JK is a code share flight with Lufthansa LH 2554.
Thick, white smoke rose above Barajas airport as helicopters and fire trucks dumped water on the plane, which ended up in a wooded area at the end of the runway at Terminal 4.
An official with the Madrid emergency rescue service SAMUR said crews were removing injured people and bodies from the MD-80, calling it a “catastrophe.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name.
The plane was an MD-82 carrying 173 people, Spanair in their last official notice mentioned in the website. In their press release, Spanair has provided contact numbers for their aircraft victim’s families and media to contact airline.
knowledgeable sources said that plane was delayed an hour by technical problems. It managed to get slightly off the ground but crashed near the end of the runway.
153 ppl died
too bad that the dead people will never be to them more than JUST NUMBERS in some statistic. and the bloody Spanair wont even pay the families of the victims, they will delay all a year, because of the process of decoding the black boxes:(
damn! life is so unfair!