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45 killed as jet swerves at Madrid airport runway

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-20 22:53

MADRID, Spain - Spain's Interior Ministry says 45 people are dead after an airliner bound for the Canary Islands swerved off the runway and caught fire during takeoff from the Madrid airport.

Emergency vehicles and helicopters surround the area where a plane skidded off the runway and crashed at Madrid's Barajas airport August 20, 2008. [Agencies]

Another 19 were seriously injured, the ministry's office for the greater Madrid region said.

Thick, white smoke billowed from the scene at Barajas airport.

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

The ministry said there 178 people on board.

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.