Three children survive Spanish air disaster

Three children were among the handful of survivors from the Madrid air crash, officials said today.

The six, eight and 11-year-olds were among the 19 who escaped after their holiday jet swerved off the runway and crashed in flames yesterday.

Another 19 children including two babies were among the 153 dead, the Madrid Health Department said.

As investigations continued into the cause of the crash, which may have involved one of the Spanair MD-82's two engines catching fire, Spain declared three days of mourning.

Flags in Madrid flew at half-mast and the king and queen planned to visit a makeshift morgue where relatives waited to claim the remains of their loved ones.

The morgue has been set up at Madrid's main convention centre which was used after the March 11, 2004 Islamic terror attacks that killed 191 people on trains in the city.

At least 25 bodies have been identified so far and it could take several days to complete the task because many were burned beyond recognition and forensic teams are having to use DNA techniques.

Outside the town hall, the mayor of Madrid joined hundreds of people in observing five minutes of silence, a noon vigil that was also observed at Madrid's Barajas International Airport.

One Spanish couple was three minutes late checking in and missed the flight.

Ertoma Bolanos said he found out about the crash when the family of his girlfriend Almudena called to say they had seen TV footage of it.

"We had no idea what had happened. My mouth dropped open," he said.

Spanair said it did not know the cause of the disaster but the aircraft had an overheated air intake valve before a first attempt at take-off. It was not clear if that had anything to do with the crash.

A company spokesman said a device called an air intake probe was reported as overheating at the front of the plane under the cockpit.

Technicians corrected the problem by turning it off which was standard procedure.

The company said the plane was cleared by technicians after the problem was fixed.

Spanair has had other recent engine problems. The company confirmed today that an MD-82 was forced to make an emergency landing on Saturday on a flight from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands to Madrid because of problems with both engines. The plane landed in the nearby island of Gran Canaria, the destination of yesterday's flight.

A company official said he did not know if the same plane was involved in both cases. The company has eight remaining MD-82s.

The accident was Spain's worst air disaster since 1983, when a Boeing 747 operated by the Colombian airline Avianca crashed near Madrid on landing approach, killing 181 people. In 1985, an Iberia Boeing 727 crashed near Bilbao in the Basque region, killing 148 people.

The deadliest disaster in aviation history occurred in Spain in 1977. Two fully loaded Boeing 747s collided on a runway in the Canary Islands and a total of 583 people died.

Spanair is Spain's second-largest airline, after Iberia but loses money and owner SAS put it up for sale more than a year ago.

A cost-saving plan calls for withdrawing older, less fuel-efficient planes such as some of its MD-82s, eliminating some routes and laying off a third of its 3,000-member workforce.