A vacation flight that wasn't

An airliner (Spanair flight JK5022) bound for the Canary Islands swerved off the runway during takeoff from the Madrid airport today (Wednesday) and caught fire, Spain's national airport authority said, killing 149 people on board.

There were only 26 survivors in the mid-afternoon crash, said Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose department is in charge of civil aviation.

It was Spain's deadliest air disaster in more than 20 years.

Spanair flight JK5022 was bound for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, a popular vacation spot off West Africa, the company said.

An official with the Madrid emergency rescue service SAMUR said crews were removing injured people and bodies from the plane.
"It is a certain catastrophe," a SAMUR official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name.

At the airport, helicopters and fire trucks poured water on the plane, which ended up in a lower, wooded area at the end of the runway at Terminal 4.

Officials at Barajas Airport said the crash may have been caused by an engine on the Spanish budget airline jet catching fire.

According to aviation analyst John Strickland the MD-80 is known as a reliable aircraft with a good safety record.

The Red Cross in Spain has set up a field hospital at the airport to treat the injured.

Spanish journalist Carlota Fomina said she had spoken to one of the passengers who had been on board the plane at the time of the crash who described an explosion and fire.

Spanair, owned by Scandinavian airline SAS, is one of Spain's three major private carriers.