Scores feared dead in Madrid plane crash

Reports say up to 150 people killed when airliner swerved off runway at Barajas airport

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Link to this video
Video of the crash scene Up to 150 people are feared dead after a plane overshot the runway at Madrid's Barajas airport, according to Spanish media reports.
Only 25 people of the 173 passengers survived when the Spanair flight JK 5022 crashed after swerving off the runway near the airport's terminal four, according to the Reuters news agency.
Spanish national radio and the El País newspaper reported that 45 people had been confirmed dead, citing the Spanish government as the source. Another 19 were said to be in a critical condition, with 25 suffering from lighter wounds.
Spanair, the country's second largest carrier, said the crash happened at 2.45pm (1.45pm BST). The flight was bound for Las Palmas, in Gran Canaria. Among the passengers on board the rear-engined MD82 plane were two children.
The flight had a code-sharing arrangement with the Lufthansa flight LH255, indicating there may have been many Germans on board.
Reports suggested the incident happened after the plane attempted to take off for a second time. Some observers said one of the left engines caught fire as the plane accelerated, causing it to swing off track. The plane reportedly broke in two.
The airport has been closed, with arriving passengers being turned away. Reporters at the scene said the terminal building had filled up with people either looking for information about relatives on the flight or caught up in the travel disruption.
Unconfirmed reports said the flight had been due to take off at 1pm and left the departure gate at 1.05pm, but returned just over half an hour later.
An official with the Madrid emergency rescue service, Samur, said crews were removing injured people and bodies from the plane. "It is certain catastrophe," the official said on condition of anonymity. Eleven fire engines were reportedly at the scene.
The Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, broke off his holiday to return to Madrid.
Madrid's terminal four was designed by the British architect Richard Rogers and opened to the public in 2006. It carries many of the European and long-haul flights and is a stopover for thousands of passengers travelling within Spain and to South America.
Around 60 million passengers use Barajas airport, which is located about 10 miles north-east of central Madrid.
An emergency telephone number was launched for relatives of people on the flights. Spanish radio said it was being inundated by calls from people complaining that the number was permanently engaged.

Folks.

Can you please stop posting variations on the 'XXX dead. XX survivors' theme? Just about every permutation of the numbers has been given earlier in the thread.

The fact that some of you see fit to create new personae for this purpose is somewhat bemusing.

Duck

Really sorry to hear about this, lets all remember though that the press'll be all over this thread asking 'could it be?/'what do you think' questions that will be put into the tabloids so less of the stupid comments by some please..

"The flight had a code-sharing arrangement with the Lufthansa flight LH255, indicating there may have been many Germans on board".

That's not really how codeshares work is it now ? Just because it has a codeshare flightnumber doesn't mean it is going to be packed with nationals of that country. God the press can be annoying sometimes...

DC-9
 

MD-82. Isn´t this plane the refurbished and stretched old Douglas DC-9?

Not refurbished, new. Just as the 737-800 is derived from the 737-100

In the good old days (i.e. when I was young) all newspapers as well as the broadcast media has an "Air Correspondent". Usually ex-service pilotsand/or engineers, they knew what they were talking about and were invariably extremely sensitive when there was a fatal accident to report on. These days, seems that the first available bod gets the job, with the dismal results that we've all seen and heard over the past few days.

Wasn't this flight a FRA-MAD-LPA flight?

maths
 

sorry not meaning to contradict the moderator, but perhaps its useful to summarise the two facts that seem to stand out, mainly because enough time has passed now:

SAS spokesperson (who we all seem to agree is very reliable) said 172 souls on board

consistent local reports saying only 28 evacuated (its the same number in all Spanish media at the moment, as is based on confirmed hospital reports), again should be reliable at this stage, one of whom died

therefore do the maths: = 145 dead

the rest of speculation is due to crappy reporting, as well as the standard practise of announcing the number of dead according to actual bodies recovered

again as a SLF I am interested to know which section the survivors came from (one post about it being safer at the back sound like nonsense to me given thats where the engines are !)

be carefull, there s also an emergency hospital at the airport, could be more survivors, so lets wait!

jo

You've not seen how many posts we've had to delete because they were either irrelevent, inappropriate or (as I said above) from people merely logging in to quote some numbers they just heard without even bothering to read the rest of the thread. It clouds the subject for those seeking genuine information.

Duck

Spanair doesn't operate FRA-MAD-LPA - they have 3 FRA-MAD flights per day feeding onto all other JK MAD departures throughout the JK system. The LPA flight only has an LH codeshare because Spanair is a Star Alliance member. It is more than possible that German nationals were onboard but there are a lot of direct FRA-LPA flights in summer so I dont think it would be a large number.

This is very sad.
What gets me it looks like over running has lead the airplane to crash off an elevated runway end which I'm sure is responsible for the seriousness of this accident.
When are ICAO EASA etc going to mandate Engineered Material Arresting Systems at the end of all runways. If this was in place in Madrid then this would be a serious incident not a fatal accident.
Airports are making record profits but refuse to spend money on these safety features and should be held accountable.
http://www.alpa.org/DesktopModules/A...2156&Tabid=256

jotape

Exactly! there isn't one. Which is why i find an 'expert' going on the BBC and stating that there is, constitutes shear stupidity. Saying sit on top of the 'black box' is a bit of a red herring, and a sure fire way to panic the public. The crash at Souix city where the aircraft did cartwheels at 200 mph saw the guys from the front walk away. Many on the media and indeed this forum should learn to be a little more considerate and brief with their words following an accident.

Fully aware that it is too early for speculation, and with due respect to the tragedy of the event, a few points raised here have caught my attention.

As an MD-80 pilot myself, I have noticed that some guys tend to rotate the aircraft too quickly, establishing the 18-ish degree ANU a little too rapidly for their own good. Add to that the length of the airplane and the large moments involved during engine loss, and you might have a disastrous combination if the engine fails at TO, causing wing-to-wing amplitudes that take some sorting out. I have seen it on the simulator, more than once. Seeing how someone wrote that the airplane hit the ground with the wing (if that came from a reliable source)...

Not trying to assign blame based on nothing, just trying to share what I have seen before.

!!!!ty fracking day.:(

of course - just thought it would be useful to summarise the hard numbers

thanks as always for your masterful moderating

Dear me ... Spanish TV is currently showing footage of the terrible 1977 Tenerife disaster ... what possible relevance can that have?

Antman,
Re: EMAS.
So far only the very first news reports mention an 'overrun'. The aircraft seems to have ended up between the runways. So 'EMAS' is irrelevant for the moment. Let's keep this on topic?

barajas
 

although MAD seems to be blessed by a lot of space (as compared to my home airport LHR...), since the expansion I can't help thinking that the runways are designed a little strangely and somewhat not reassuringly

I mean just imagine if this flight was taking off in the other direction, or going east-west from one of the older runways - we would be talking not only Spanair but also crash into terminals and/or parked aircraft

ADDED DETAIL:

crash took place on 36L, but same runway other way round (18R) would mean crashing into parked aircraft (if in straight line), hangars, and even pax terminals if veered of straight line

same potential issue if taking off from 33L or 15L

note: this is because of the rather peculiar way of constructing the new terminal/satellite pretty much at the end of the older runways - not really the way most new or updated airports are built !!

Looks like the deadliest ever involving a MD-8X?