Survivor tells of hellish final minutes in plane crash

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-22 09:28

MADRID, Spain -- A gauge indicating that overheated air was entering a Spanair jetliner forced pilots to abandon a takeoff about an hour before the plane crashed in flames, but airline officials refused to speculate today on the cause of the accident that killed 153 people.

A passenger jet takes off as smoke rises from the scene of the crash where a Spanair MD-82 jet bound for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands skidded off the runway and crashed at Madrid's Barajas airport on August 20, 2008.[Agencies]

As investigators tried to piece together what happened, relatives crushed by grief went to a makeshift morgue to identify loved ones. Officials said many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition.

One survivor told of the heaving, hellish final minutes of the MD-82's flight, saying she feared she was going to die.

"The plane was rocking back and forth, until I suspected it was going to fall," Ligia Palomino, a 41-year-old emergency rescue worker who happened to be on board, told Spain's Cadena Ser radio station. "I saw people, smoke, explosions. I think that is what woke me up because I had lost consciousness."

"I thought that if help did not arrive soon I would die," said Palomino, who suffered leg injuries and a broken rib.

Video footage of the scene broadcast by Spanish national television TVE showed wreckage strewn across a wide area, with white plastic covering what appeared to be victims' remains.

Many of the victims in Wednesday's flight were families traveling to the Canary Islands, a Spanish beach resort off Africa's West Coast. Compounding the tragedy was news that at least 22 of those on board were children, including two infants. Only three youngsters were believed to be among the 19 survivors.

Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez said 39 bodies have been identified, and that the process could take days because forensic teams were using DNA to help make identifications.

Some mourners spent the night at the morgue, set up at Madrid's main convention center -- the same facility used for bodies after the March 11, 2004 Islamic terror attacks that killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains.

Amid the horror were several stories of hope, and others of sheer luck.

The three children who survived -- boys aged 6 and 8, and an 11-year-old girl -- all suffered relatively minor injuries. The older boy had nothing more than a broken leg, extraordinary considering the devastation at the crash site.

And then there was the Spanish couple who were three minutes late and missed the flight altogether. Ertoma Bolanos said that he and his girlfriend Almudena checked in but did not make it to the gate in time. They learned of the crash when Almudena's family called to say they had seen footage of it on TV.

"Today is another birthday," Bolanos said.

One day after the crash, Spanair gave new information about the plane's initial attempt to take off. Spokesman Javier Mendoza said an air intake gauge under the cockpit had detected overheating while the jetliner was taxiing, causing the plane to turn back. Technicians corrected the problem by essentially turning the gauge off.

Mendoza said the device is not on a checklist of equipment that has to be functional for a plane to depart, and that turning off such a device is an accepted procedure. The plane was eventually cleared by technicians, but crashed on its second attempt to take off, burning and breaking into pieces.

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