Spanair accident at the Madrid airport

Oh no! My prayers to the people who died & their families.

Kelly

Terrible! The death toll is rising. On our early news they said 100 people had died but now they are saying 149 people have died. The plane was bound for the Canary Islands.

It's been really terrible.

You can't imagine the answer from all TV channels the same day of the accident, family from people who were travelling in that plane, everything ... really terrible.

It's been the worst accident during the last 25 years in Madrid (since that horrible one in 1,983)

Buen Camino, definitely walking, not flying

Javier Martin
Madrid, Spain.

From Spanish Fiestas newsletter:

This is the 5th major plane tragedy in the last 30 years in Spain:

27 March 1977
583 people died in Los Rodeos, Tenerife, after two Boeing 747s collide - one Pan Am, one KLM.

23 April 1980
146 people died near Los Rodeos, Tenerife, when a Dan Air Boeing 727 crashed while attempting to land.

27 November 1983
181 people died, 11 survived, when an Avianca Boeing 747 crashed in the village of Mejorada del Campo, near Madrid, on its way to Barajas aiport.

19 February 1985
148 died when an Iberia Boeing 727 crashed into a TV mast near Bilbao.

20 August 2008
153 people died and 19 were seriously injured when a Spanair MD-82 plane skidded off the runway on take-off at Madrid's Barajas airport.

In spite of the horror of this accident it is still the case that flying is an exceptionally safe form of transport. In 1979 there were three fatal accidents per million flights, compared with one fatal accident per two million flights by last year, according to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) figures. Spanair had an exceptional safety record prior to this accident and airline safety worldwide is now considered to be six times better than it was 25 years ago.