Madrid plane crash: Passenger 'forced to stay on disaster flight'

Videos
Photos

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-22 07:46

Nearly two hours before the ill-fated Spanair flight crashed in a fireball, killing 153 people, Ruben Santana Mateo sent a text message reading: "My love, there's a problem with the plane."

His wife Maria rang him and told him to leave the plane but he is said to have told her "They won't let me off" and that cabin crew had made him get back in his seat. He died in the crash.

The passenger's son, also called Ruben, said: "My mother called him and said that he should get off but my father said they would not let him."

The accusation that Spanair refused to let a passenger off the flight came as the airline defended its decision to allow Flight JK5022 to make a second attempt at take-off after the first was aborted.

There was an intake of air through a valve in the cockpit which forced the pilot to return to the gate and have maintenance work done.

Spanair said that fault had been successfully fixed by turning off the valve. The company said it could not be the cause of the fire in the plane's left engine which led to it crashing on the second attempted take-off.

But Madrid flight controller Javier Fernandez Garcia said other problems had kept the plane grounded on two previous occasions.

Harrowing details emerged of the aftermath of the crash including that a mother gave her own life so that her 11-year-old daughter could be rescued.

Amalia Filloy was with her daughter Maria, 11, when a firefighter reached them in the burning wreckage.

Mrs Filloy begged the firefighter "Please take my daughter, rescue my daughter".

The fireman, Francisco Martinez, said: "I was deeply affected to learn that she died and had given her life for her daughter."

Maria Filloy was one of three children who survived the disaster, all of them rescued by the heroic Mr Martinez.

He said: "I took one child into the truck and he thought he was in a film. He asked 'When will this film end?' and 'Where is my dad?'

"He thought he was in a film and he wanted the film to end."

As the plane hit the ground shortly after take-off, some of the 19 people who survived the disaster were flung into the air and landed in a nearby stream, which saved them from being burned alive in the wreckage.

The youngest survivor, Roberto Alvarez Carretero, six, is unconscious in intensive care after suffering severe head and facial injuries but doctors believe he will live. His sister Maria, 16, who was sat next to him, is believed to be dead.

Incredibly, eight-year-old Alfredo Jesus Acosta Mendiola also survived. Rescue workers found him suffering only from a broken leg and crying out for his mother and father amid a scene of horror.

His Colombian-born father Alfredo Acosta Sierra, 60, died in the crash and his mother Gregoria Mendiola Rodriguez, 45, is fighting for her life in a coma.

A female airport worker said: "Alfredo was incredibly together when we found him. He was complaining about some pain but what most worried him was finding his parents."

The third child to survive was Maria Alonso Filloy, 11. She also suffered just a broken leg. Her mother Amalia was believed to be among the dead, but her father Jose survived.

Other survivors gave vivid accounts of how they escaped Europe's worst air disaster for decades.

Ligia Palomino, 41, a doctor with Madrid's ambulance service, was rescued by her own colleagues who wept as they treated her amidst the wreckage and charred corpses.

Mrs Palomino suffered a broken hip, burns and cuts to her face.

She said: "When we took off I heard a horrible noise and the next thing I remember was being flung from the aircraft. I lifted my head and all I saw were scattered bodies."

Another survivor, Beatriz Reyes Ojeda, was able to walk away from the carnage.

She said: "I remember noticing there was something wrong with the plane. Then I remember lifting my head up and the plane had no roof."

The captain Antonio Luna, 38, from Majorca, was confirmed among the dead. His co-pilot Francisco Javier Mulet, 32, who also died, had been due to get married in a couple of months.

Both had broken arms suggesting they wrestled with the controls until the last second.

One Spanish couple were saved because they missed the flight by three minutes.

Experts said the cause of the crash was the as yet unexplained engine fire which could have caused shrapnel to erupt into the fuselage, fatally damaging aviation systems.

The accident happened as Majorca-based Spanair, a subsidiary of Scandinavian Airlines Systems, suffers one of the most difficult years in its 22-year history, with pilots threatening to strike over job cuts just hours before the crash.

One Spanair source said that crew members have been "exhausted" for months, as budget cuts at the airline took their effect.

The source said: "We are working 15 hours a day, five days a week, sometimes six flights a day. It is right on limit of the law and we are very tired."

Airport sources said that of the two flight data recorders recovered from the wreckage, one was severely damaged but the other in excellent condition.