UPDATED: Spanair Off Runway at Madrid, 140 Dead

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Plane crashes in Madrid - deaths feared
Times Online

At least two people were reported to have been killed today when a packed passenger jet overshot the runway as it tried to take off from Madrid airport.

El Mundo newspaper reported on its website that the Spanair plane, with 60 passengers aboard, crashed as it tried to take off from Terminal 4 at the Barajas airport. It was headed for Las Palmas airport on the island of Gran Canaria.

Reports put the number of wounded as high as 43.

The craft was said to be in flames and sending a huge column of smoke into the air. Eleven fire engines were tackling the blaze. [Full Article]

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UPDATED 11am

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140 dead in Madrid plane crash
Some 140 people were killed today when a packed passenger jet caught fire and overshot the runway as it tried to take off from Madrid airport, official sources said.

The Spanair plane, with 173 passengers and crew aboard, crashed and broke apart as it tried to take off from Terminal 4 at the Barajas airport. It was heading for Las Palmas airport on the island of Gran Canaria.

The Reuters news agency quoted sources in the emergency services as saying that all but about 25 of those aboard had been killed - far ahead of initial death tolls given by officials.

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From what I found out, it was an MD-82.. The plane tried to abort take off after the #1 engine had fire.. I didnt think death would be involved with such incident... I havent seen pictures yet..

No pics of the plane yet it seems, just a lot of smoke. The airport is in a somewhat hilly area, and it looks like the plane may have gone down a pretty large hill, which would explain the break up and death toll.

Looks like 45-50 people are dead. All those news agencies making it out of proportion. Lets wait and see what Spanish government will say.

The aircraft that crashed is EC-HFP: http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6274538

R.I.P. to those who perished.

Here in the UK we heard about it around 5.30pm UK time and we got the same images as you.

Its very scarey to think such a thing happened, I aint a pilot or airplane engineer but it makes me think 3-4 engined planes could have been safer than 2 engined ones coz if one of the 3-4 fails you still have 2-3 left to fly the bird.

My deepest condole-lon-sense to the families of the dead.

Jetinder, a twin-engine airliner has the ability to continue takeoff and fly on one engine. Based on the reports, it sounds like this was an aborted takeoff that went off the end of the runway. Depending on when they initiated the abort, and what the conditions were, you can have that happen with any aircraft. If they were past V1 speed, they should have continued the takeoff, unless there was some catastrophic condition where they felt it better to abort and risk going off the runway. But past V1, even a twin-engine airliner should be able to safely complete the takeoff following an engine failure.

Well said Moose. I agree, something else had to have gone wrong in order for an accident like this to happen, as one engine failure alone should not crash a jet like this. There must be some other contributing factor, be it mechanical, or pilot error (aborting too late), or something else entirely. I read that the black boxes have already been recovered, so hopefully there will be some answers soon.

RIP to all who passed, a sad tragedy...

From one of the survivor reports I read, it sounds like they took off and landed smoothly before running off the end of the runway. This would certainly give a lot of weight to the pilot error/aborting wayyy too late theory.

Hi Moose :)

No worries thank you for helping me understand what happened today.

What a tragedy. May they RIP.

some of the first pictures have come out. needless to say quite disturbing :(

http://www.elmundo.es/albumes/2008/0...jas/index.html

I'm speechless over that first picture.

RIP to those that perished. Wow, those are some bad pictures.

The Spanish response teams are certainly some of the best in the world, for those who managed to survive this tradgedy it was partly do to that I'm sure. During the bombings in Madrid in 2004 ambulances and fire fighters were on scene within minutes.

Today was a tragic day for Spanish aviation since this is the worst crash they've had in 20 years. My family feels rather disturbed by the crash since we feel very connected to the airport.

RIP to all who perished.