MADRID, Spain — It was a troubled flight from the beginning. One attempt at takeoff was aborted. Departure was delayed by more than an hour. Passengers, many of them parents traveling with their young children, were grumpy and hot, eager to get on with it, to start their holidays in the alluring Canary Islands.
Several used their cell phones to call relatives and report the problems. Finally, they said by phone, the flight was going to take off.
It tried. But seconds after Spanair flight JK5022, a Boeing MD-82, barreled down a new runway at Madrid’s Barajas airport and began to lift off, the jet jerked to the right and plowed into a tree-covered ravine. The fuselage broke into two pieces, maybe more, according to witnesses at the airport, and burst into flames.
At least 153 people were killed in the deadliest accident at this city’s ultramodern airport in a quarter-century. Nineteen people, including two children, survived the fiery crash.
“I pulled out about seven people alive,” said Francisco Cruz, a private pilot who was among the people pressed into rescue service. And then it was all dead bodies.”
McDonnell Douglas, which built the MD-82, was bought by Boeing in 1997. Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx said the company would send at least one person to assist in the investigation of the crash as soon as it receives an invitation from Spanish authorities.
“We stand ready to provide technical assistance,” he said.
Sergio Allart, commercial director for Spanair, said the aircraft had passed a routine inspection in January. He said that he could not speculate on the cause of the crash but offered the airliner’s cooperation with investigators who will include a team from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
The investigation will reportedly focus on an engine that apparently caught fire as the plane lifted from the tarmac.
The plane crashed on a hot, clear day around 2:45 p.m. at one of Europe’s premier airports.
It was not immediately clear what went wrong. Scores of ambulances, fire trucks and other rescuers descended on the site while helicopters overhead poured fire-retardant spray on the wreckage. White and gray smoke billowed into the air, visible for miles.
“This is a huge tragedy,” said Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose is responsible for civil aviation.
Alvarez said the jetliner had barely gotten airborne when it veered right, crashed and broke into pieces.
She said the plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been recovered.
Rescuers dragged hot-to-touch corpses from the wreckage throughout the afternoon and the handful of survivors, many burned and with broken bones, were rushed to hospitals. Some survivors had been hurled from the plane by the impact and landed in a stream, where the water shielded them from burns, rescuers said.
Ervigio Corral, head of emergency rescue services, said some survivors were able to walk away from the accident. But, he said, he and the other emergency workers encountered a grim scene of widely scattered corpses, many of them children.
“The plane was destroyed,” he said, adding he could make out little more than the tail of the aircraft.
“It was the closest thing to hell that I have seen,” an unidentified Civil Guard police officer told the El Pais newspaper.
Government spokesman Francisco Granados first said 26 survivors were found, but the number was later lowered to 19.
The Spanair flight was headed for Las Palmas, a popular summer vacation spot on one of the largest of the Canary archipelago off West Africa.
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