Black box to give clues in Spanair disaster

The “black box” flight data recorder will hold a clue to the likely cause of the devastating Madrid air crash which claimed more than 150 lives, air experts said today.

Air crash investigators are trying to work out what happened to the Spanair MD-82 while taking off from Madrid airport for the Canary Islands.

Experts pointed to the rarity of take-off accidents and to the fact that Europe had been free of major plane disasters in recent years.

Take-offs and landings are seen as the critical times for planes and their cockpit crews.

Kieran Daly, editor of internet news service Air Transport Intelligence, said today: "Take-off accidents are very, very rare. You reach a point in take-off when it is unlikely that anything can go wrong but if things do go wrong, they can go wrong very quickly.

“On take-off, pilots reach a point of no return, known as V1 speed, which is usually reached about two seconds before take-off.

“If you go above V1 and abort the take-off, there is insufficient room at the end of the runway and there is the chance of going off the end of the runway at a very fast speed and things can then go very badly wrong.”

Mr Daly went on: “The normal rule is that if you go beyond V1 and something goes wrong, you take off anyway. If, for example, a tyre blew, you would take off.

“A problem at the point of take-off is very challenging for the pilot. If something happens at the point of V1, he is committed to taking off. If there is an engine failure at this point, he is flying an aircraft at very low speed.”

Mr Daly said the recovery of the flight data recorder – actually orange in colour but popularly known as the black box – would allow investigators to know the state of the engines in the seconds before the crash.

“They should be able to work out whether the plane was in a flyable condition in those last few moments,” Mr Daly said.

The MD-82 is part of the MD-80 family of aircraft that has been in passenger service since October 1979.

Around 860 of the MD-80s are still in service. Alitalia has around 70, Scandinavian airline SAS has more than 40 and Iberia has around 19.

“It’s been a safe and widely-used aircraft,” said Mr Daly.

Spanair Flight JK5022 had just taken off for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands when it crashed, broke up and burst into flames at around 2.30pm local time.

At least 153 people were killed, according to Spanish development minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose department controls civil aviation.

Spanair spokesman Sergio Allard said the MD-82 aircraft was carrying 172 people and the cause of the crash was unknown.

A makeshift mortuary was set up at the city’s main convention centre.

Spanair’s managing director Marcus Hedblom described the crash as “the worst thing that could happen” and expressed his condolences to the families of those killed.

The worst disaster in aviation history occurred in Spain in 1977 when two Boeing 747s collided on a runway in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583.

In February 1985, an Iberia Boeing 727 crashed near Bilbao in the Basque region, killing 148 people.

In November 1983, a Boeing 747 operated by the Colombian airline Avianca crashed near Madrid, killing 181 people.

Spanair spokeswoman Henrietta Ellekrog told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Obviously, everybody is searching for information and everybody is keen on learning the cause of the accident.

“This is a very deeply tragic accident but right now our primary concern is for the family and the next of kin of the passengers and the crew on board.”