Posts Tagged ‘runway’
Flying Out of Alicante Airport
An averagey takeoff with an easyJet Boeing 737 from malaga Airport, Spain from Runway 14.
Duration : 0:3:25
MADRID, Spain — A Spanish plane with more than 170 people on board went off the runway Wednesday at Madrid’s Barajas Airport, killing at least 90 people, officials said.
Medical personnel tend an injured passenger in Madrid’s Barajas airport.
The crash during take off reportedly followed an explosion on board the budget airline jet, sending up a plume of smoke visible from several kilometers away.
The official death toll is 90, according to Interior Ministry officials. But local officials are telling that 26 people taken to hospital are the only survivors.
Some of those survivors have serious injuries and others non-life threatening injuries. Many of the injured were treated for burns.
The incident happened as Spanair Flight 5022 was taking off from the main runway, the official said. It was headed to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, a more than two-hour flight. Watch smoke rising from airport »
The Red Cross said it has set up a field hospital at the airport to treat the injured and is offering psychological counseling to the victims’ families.
Clouds of gray and black smoke billowed from the site, and even local media cameras could not get a close view of the accident scene. A helicopter passed overhead, dumping what appeared to be water on reported grassfires sparked by the blaze.
Ambulances were seen speeding in and out of the airport and dozens of emergency vehicles gathered at one entrance point. Watch as the wounded arrive at a hospital »
Spanish media reported at least 11 fire engines were dispatched to control the blaze.
Spanish journalist Carlota Fomina told she had spoken to one of the passengers who had been on board the plane at the time of the crash who described an explosion and fire at the back of the plane.
It was not immediately clear when during take off the accident happened or if the plane had managed to get off the ground.
The accident happened as Spanair Flight 5022 — also carrying passengers from Lufthansa Flight 2554 — was taking off at about 2:45 p.m. (8:45 a.m. ET), an airport official said.
Spanair, owned by Scandinavian airline SAS, is one of Spain’s three major private carriers.
An SAS official said there were 166 passengers plus six crew on the plane, which was a code-share flight with Lufthansa Airline, indicating the jet may have been carrying German vacationers. Watch as relatives of survivors start arriving at the airport »
Barajas Airport closed after the crash but reopened more than two hours later, allowing a limited number of take-offs and landings, the airport official said.
It was the first fatal accident at the airport since December 1983, when 93 people were killed as two Spanish airliners collided while taxiing for takeoff.
The airport, eight miles (13 km) northeast of central Madrid, is Spain’s busiest, handling more than 40 million passengers a year.
The United States’ National Transportation Safety Board is sending an investigation team to Madrid to aid in the crash investigation because the aircraft is an American-made McDonnell Douglas MD-82, NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said.
He said the group will depart “as soon as we can gather the team together.”
1. video: http://edition.cnn.com/
2. video: Reuters
3. pictures Reuters
Duration : 0:4:18
Barcelona Airport is Spain’s second airport after Madrid Barajas – Barcelona doesn’t like to be outdone by Madrid, so expect Catalonia and the Mediterranean’s Number One airport to expand in coming years.
Most of the traffic at Barcelona-El Prat Airport is domestic or European – the number of intercontinental connections is well below other European airports with a similar level of passenger traffic.
This lack of intercontinental connections has been a constant cause of complaint and pressure by the authorities and local pressure groups in recent years – they want airport to become a centre of world air traffic distribution and not just European.
In recent years low-cost airlines traffic has grown significantly, especially after Vueling and ClickAir established bases at the airport.
These two companies merged in July 2009, and now operate under the name of Vueling. Other low-cost airlines operating from the airport include EasyJet, SkyEurope and WizzAir.
The airport has 3 runways – the 07L/25R and 07R/25L run parallel to each other, and the 02/20 is a cross-runway.
Barcelona has two terminals – T1 and T2.
T2 is the sum of the previous Terminals A, B and C and the new T1 opened on in JUne 2009, adding significant
Terminal 1 - before it opened
capacity to Barcelona-El Prat.
The two terminals have a combined total of 268 check-in counters and 64 boarding gates between them.
A plan for expansion includes a third terminal building and control tower and an additional runway – the 07R/25L.
Once these developments are complete in 2009, the airport will be capable of handling 55 million passengers annually – a significant increase on 33 million passengers in 2007.
The airport will expand in area from 8.45 to 15.33 square kilometres (3.26 to 5.92 sq mi) by late-2009/early-2010.
A further expansion is planned to be finished by 2012, with the building of a new satellite terminal which will increase capacity to 70 million passengers a year.
Malaga airport tour AGP-LEMG