Just saw on the news that there has been a terrible plane crash at the Madrid airport - a plane departing for the Canary Islands. Please pray for those involved.

I saw the breaking news also...a Spanair flight leaving Madrid. The loss of lives is high - maybe as many as 150 passengers.

What a tragedy.

I didn't see this thread and started one with a link about the crash.
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35151334

Big time prayers being sent up for those flying and the families waiting for news.

the latest ( 10 min) from El Pais

Al menos 140 muertos tras estrellarse en el despegue un avión que salía de Barajas

En el avión iban 175 personas.- Se busca a 25 desaparecidos.- Hay 20 supervivientes, algunos heridos de gravedad, según confirman fuentes sanitarias.- El vuelo es el Spanair JK5022 que se dirigía a la isla de Gran Canaria.- Teléfono de atención: 800 400 200

Horrible!

The MD80 planes they use are retired ones from

Aero Lloyd, Korean Air, China Eastern Airlines and Finnair.

We landed this afternoon in Madrid at around 5 o´clock. Our plane from Athens had around 25 minutes delay, and upon arrival we saw all of the fingers occupied, so our plane stood in the tarmac and we were picked up by buses.

The airport was eerily quiet. Lots of policemen, and we found that strange, and while we were waiting for the luggage many people from the civil protection services ( firemen, Red Cross ...) came through. Some of them were weeping. That´s when my mum called me and told me all about the accident. We had seen some smoke, but we managed not to see the crashed plane.

It is absolutely awful. Most of the passengers were young people coming back to their home island.

Bye, Cova

A tragic story, I cringed when I read about it. Very very sad. My heart breaks for the loved ones that got killed. Young ones, ah Cova again what a tragedy.

Loveitaly, they were just saying right now that there were around 20 children in the passenger list, and that many cases were complete families ( dad, mum and the kids ).

I hope that Spanair will handle this more gracefully than the way they have been treating passengers lately, but I don´t have a lot of hope.

Bye, Cova

It's such a heart wrenching tragedy. El Pais now reports 153 dead and only 19 survivors (the twentieth sadly died in the hospital). Apparently the cause was a fire in one of the engines. Spanair has published a list of the passengers but not the survivors-such a horrendous agony for the families involved and waiting for news of their loved ones.

Terrible, terrible news. I am so sad.

Very sad news indeed and tragic. My thoughts and prayers to all.

So sad ,, and so upsetting to hear that a passenger from that flight had phoned a relative to say they thought "there was something wrong with the plane" ,, "that they might have to change planes" becuase it had tried to take off once, and then aborted that first take off ,, but instead of getting the pasengers off the plane, they tried again to take off, and look what happpened...

My thoughts and prayers with all of the families; a terrible tragedy.

[-o< ...very sad to read this news.

all of spain mourns the victims of this tragic accident. it is so so sad.

I know that the crash is an old story, but during the last week I haven´t been able to get online.

One of my colleagues was on that plane, and he has survived !!! I heard the name and I thought that it couldn´t be true, but it was. He has some serious injuries, but it seems that he will be OK, after all.

Bye, Cova

cova, what a miracle! I am very happy for your colleague and all who care for him/her

Thankfully--and miraculously--there were a few (too few) survivors. I am really happy for your colleague, Cova.

That is a wonderful surprise for you and a miarcle also,, I am sure you are so happy to learn of his good fortune, I hope he recovers physically fully from this horrible event, I know there will always be a wound inside him after seeing so many others perish.