Madrid plane crash claims 147

[smahoo]

MADRID, Spain - A Spanish emergency rescue official says there are only 26 survivors after an airliner with 173 people aboard crashed on takeoff from Madrid's airport.

The official with the SAMUR municipal rescue service gave the toll after touring the site of Wednesday's crash.

The official told AP the rest of the people on the plane have been given up for dead. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules that barred him from giving his name.

The Spanair jet was bound for the Canary Islands.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080820/ap_on_re_eu/spain_airport_accident

[Limp]

I love how a local news outlet has been sending me "Breaking News" on this:

BREAKING NEWS: 7 Reported Dead After Plane Swerves Off Madrid Runway

1 hour later

BREAKING NEWS: 45 Killed In Madrid Runway Accident

40 minutes later

BREAKING NEWS: 147 Killed In Madrid Plane Accident

[Claydon]

What type of aircraft?

[smahoo]

^^ gotta be KPRC...if it wasn't for dominque that shit would be off the air

[Limp]

What type of aircraft?
Click the link you dirty cunt.

The plane was an Boeing MD-82 on a codeshare flight to Las Palmas

[Will]

No matter how many times I fly and how aware I am of the statistics I'm still gripped by terror for every second I'm inside a plane.

[Limp]

^^ gotta be KPRC...if it wasn't for dominque that shit would be off the air
Yep!

And don't forget Jennifer Reyna on Traffic.
http://www.click2houston.com/2006/0919/9883757_400X300.jpg

[Claydon]

Egads, I flew on an MD-82 from Ohau to Big Island this month. Slick little plane...very peppy and so quiet.

[Jatoza]

I'm sure the survivors have a different opinion of the plane.

[Claydon]

The two most dangerous moments of airline travel is take off and landing. It is when the aircraft is going the slowest and is the heaviest. Take off you have shit tons of fuel and landing you are just pretty much idled engines and falling.

[Limp]

I'm sure the survivors have a different opinion of the plane.
I just saw them interviewing one of the survirors... they agreed and said it was a pretty hot plane.

[Will]

I just saw them interviewing one of the survirors... they agreed and said it was a pretty hot plane.

Did they conduct the interview via Whoopi Goldberg's clairvoyant from Ghost?

[Oleg]

The two most dangerous moments of airline travel is take off and landing. It is when the aircraft is going the slowest and is the heaviest. Take off you have shit tons of fuel and landing you are just pretty much idled engines and falling.

This is obviously true, yet ironically many people seem to be most scared when the plane is in mid flight. Still, it's a safer alternative to most forms of transportation, although that's not doing these folks much good right now.

[Penguin Rick]

Holy shit, my dad left for Dubai on Monday and arrived safely yesterday morning. But that entire time, I'm not going to lie, I was scanning cnn.com for any breaking plane crashes because I had a bad feeling.

Thoughts go out to the families of the victims.

[Genius]

I hate it when they say "claims". It's not like the crash showed up and said "yeah, uh, those 147 over there. They're, uh, mine, I'm taking them."

[}{arlequin]

wonder how much techno and ecstasy was lost in that crash

[Genius]

Not enough.

[Le Goat]

afa_1219242240

[Pollo]

it's still a rough number, but now the number of deaths (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080820/ap_on_re_eu/spain_airport_accident) has gone up to 153.

[swss]

Only 19 survivors.... Spain's worst air disaster in nearly 25 years.

[rustytulip]

I don't want to put a dampner on it but I have 2 mates that point blankly refuse to get on a plane and it's news like this that I'm gonna dread going out on Saturday night. It'll be "See that plane crash in the week?" - "Yeah, good job we don't fly".

[Claydon]

I don't want to put a dampner on it but I have 2 mates that point blankly refuse to get on a plane and it's news like this that I'm gonna dread going out on Saturday night. It'll be "See that plane crash in the week?" - "Yeah, good job we don't fly".

Remind your friend that they have far BETTER odds getting killed in their cars. 48,000 people died in car accidents last year in the US.

[Fletch]

I believe I read that the chances of being in an airplane crash are like 1 in 11 million.
Being in a car accident: 1 in 5000
Getting struck by lightning: 1 in 700,000

(via TIME magazine)

[Claydon]

I believe I read that the chances of being in an airplane crash are like 1 in 11 million.
Being in a car accident: 1 in 5000
Getting struck by lightning: 1 in 700,000

(via TIME magazine)

Winning the lottery is even worse, something like 1 in 43 million.

[mongo]

seriously guys, where is evilrabbit?

[Claydon]

Probably the playboy mansion.

[Archangel]

I don't want to put a dampner on it but I have 2 mates that point blankly refuse to get on a plane and it's news like this that I'm gonna dread going out on Saturday night. It'll be "See that plane crash in the week?" - "Yeah, good job we don't fly".

Your mates sound a right bunch of idiots.

[Distortion]

i've flown in and out of spain before, and both times those pilots were so shitty i about shit myself, the plane was swaying back and forth the whole flight, and ever y time we landed i was sure we were crashing, it was no easy landing, we probably did a 20 - 30 ft drop onto tarmac and hopped and skidded all over the place. I'll never fly in spain again, especially after this shit

[swss]

i've flown in and out of spain before, and both times those pilots were so shitty i about shit myself, the plane was swaying back and forth the whole flight, and ever y time we landed i was sure we were crashing, it was no easy landing, we probably did a 20 - 30 ft drop onto tarmac and hopped and skidded all over the place. I'll never fly in spain again, especially after this shit

Well then you don't want to fly in China either.... my experience was similar there, I've never bounced so much or hit so hard on the landing...

[rustytulip]

Your mates sound a right bunch of idiots.

Yeah you're right! They came to visit me while I was working in Belgium and they drove for 8.5 hours rather than get a 55 minute flight! Funnily enough though that weekend a cargo plane bummed out on the runway and some planes were diverted.

[Alcestis]

www.msnbc.msn.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26347701/)

Spain's civil aviation chief said Friday a combination of factors probably caused this week's fiery plane crash in Madrid, which killed 153 people.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Manuel Bautista said a failure of one of the Spanair MD-82's two engines by itself — if such a failure did in fact occur — should not normally be enough to bring down a modern aircraft because they are designed to fly on just one if necessary.

"A set of causes probably came together to cause the accident," Bautista said.

[tockit]

The two most dangerous moments of airline travel is take off and landing. It is when the aircraft is going the slowest and is the heaviest. Take off you have shit tons of fuel and landing you are just pretty much idled engines and falling.
This crash, like most, was probably due to a chain of events, involving pilot error, and possibly a mechanical failure of some kind.

While airplanes are somewhat more vulnerable during takeoff and landing, flight crews train relentlessly in simulators and on check rides to prepare for procedures involving different scenarios during takeoffs and landings (such as losing an engine, inflight fires, etc).

That airplane can fly and land on one engine with no problem, as long as the pilot configures it properly and adheres to the flight parameters required to do so.

Airplanes generally don't crash themselves. Complacent pilots do.

[Archangel]

So apparently, after the first aborted take-off, some passengers wanted to leave the plane, and the pilot wouldn't let them.

Typical Spanish macho bullshit. Those people think nothing of killing 150 people if they can prove that their balls are the biggest.

[Morfin]

Airplanes generally don't crash themselves. Complacent pilots do.

I find it more than ironic that you, with your Charlton Heston NRA av, with your slogan of "Guns don't kill people, people do, would make this statement. It signals to me your level of ignorance.