Spain: Plane Crash

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CBC

Three people were killed and 16 injured when a plane crashed while landing at an airport in Spain. The crash occurred near the airport in Malaga on a flight from North Africa. The plane was operated by a unit of Spain's Ibera airlines.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), August 29, 2001

Answers

BBC

Four people have died after a plane crash-landed on a road while coming into land at Malaga airport in southern Spain.

Reports say at least 25 people have been injured. The fatalities include the captain of the plane, who died later in hospital.

Spanish national radio said some of the injured were in a critical condition.

Emergency teams have now freed all those who were trapped inside.

The Binter Mediterraneo airline plane with 44 passengers and three crew crashed as it was coming in to land on a short trip from Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco.

Two of the dead have been identified as Melilla residents.

A spokeswoman for Spain's national airport authority said the pilot had warned Malaga air traffic control at about 1000 local time (0800 GMT) that he was about to make a crash-landing.

National news agency Efe reported passengers saying that the plane's left engine had shut down as the aircraft approached the airport.

They said they had been stuck inside the plane for nearly half an hour before they could break a window and escape.

Nose first

A reporter at the scene for Spanish radio said the plane appeared to have come down nose first.

Those at the front appeared to have suffered the worst injuries, she said.

Three people were confirmed dead. The plane's captain Mariano Ruano, 55, died later in hospital, Binter said.

The Spanish pilots' union SEPLA said Mr Ruano's skillful flying had averted a greater tragedy.

Fire engines and ambulances were on the scene to help evacuate passengers.

One radio station, Cadena SER, said the plane had landed some 200 metres (yards) from Malaga airport, blocking traffic on the national highway N340.

The station said the main body of the plane had broken in half.

There are no reports that anyone on the ground was hurt.

Scheduled service

The plane is a propeller-driven CN-235, which carries 44 passengers, two pilots and a cabin attendant.

The aircraft, most commonly used for military transport, was flying a regular scheduled service.

The Binter fleet has five of the planes. Earlier in the year, Iberia sold Binter to Air Nostrum, a privately-owned Spanish airline that operates as an Iberia franchise.

Malaga airport has remained open and a spokeswoman at Gatwick Airport - the starting point for most UK flights to the resort - said the crash was not causing problems so far.

She said there were only another three flights scheduled to leave Gatwick for Malaga - all of them later on Wednesday afternoon.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), August 29, 2001.


Canoe

Airliner crashes onto highway

By JEROME SOCOLOVSKY-- The Associated Press

MALAGA, Spain (AP) -- A turboprop airliner crash-landed on a highway near an airport in the southern Spanish city of Malaga on Wednesday, killing three passengers and the captain, and injuring 25 others on board.

The pilot of the Binter Mediterraneo airliner radioed that he was having engine trouble and asked for ambulances to be dispatched two minutes before he crashed at about 10:15 a.m., just yards from the edge of the airport, police said.

"The pilot had an engine failure," said Malaga provincial police chief Jose Torres Hurtado. "With a bit more altitude, he would have made it."

The plane was carrying 44 people and three crew members on its regular run from Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the northern Moroccan coast.

Rescue crews rushed to the plane, giving first aid to bruised and bleeding passengers as firefighters hosed down the aircraft. The broken fuselage blocked two lanes of the busy national highway N340 between Malaga and the resort town Torremolinos, backing up traffic for miles.

Police said several passengers were trapped for a time inside the plane. Others broke open a window and escaped through an emergency door.

The plane's captain, Mariano Ruano, 55, died later in a hospital, the airline said. The Spanish pilots' union SEPLA said Ruano's skillful flying had averted a greater tragedy.

The three passengers who died in the crash were identified as Emilio Martinez Plaza, 67, and Mohamed Mohamed Uassani, both residents of Melilla; and Herve Troadec, 41, a French citizen. Troadec's hometown was not released.

All the passengers except Troadec were believed to be Spaniards.

The airline said the cause of the accident had not been determined. Binter is a former subsidiary of the national airline, Iberia.

It was the fourth accident involving the company's CN-235s this year, including three that crashed in Turkey between January and May, killing 41 people, said the government's Efe news agency.

The agency cited officials in Melilla saying Binter planned to replace its five CN235s next year because of complaints from authorities and passengers that the aircraft were frequently breaking down.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), August 29, 2001.


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