HELL ON AIR

Spain began three days of mourning Thursday for the 153 people who died when a jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff in the nation's worst air disaster in nearly 25 years.
Only 19 people survived Wednesday's crash of a Spanair plane bound for the Canary Islands.
Development Minister Magdalana Alvarez said Thursday that 14 bodies have been identified so far. She said the process could take several days because many bodies were burned beyond recognition and forensic teams are using DNA techniques.
Flags in Madrid flew at half-staff and a silent vigil was planned for noon. The king and queen planned to visit a makeshift morgue where relatives were waiting to claim the remains of their loved ones.
Some mourners spent the whole night at the morgue.
Spanair said it did not know the cause of the crash.
The Spanish newspaper El Pais said one of the two engines failed and may have caught fire during takeoff. La Vanguardia said witnesses saw the plane's left engine explode and catch fire before the aircraft went down.
Experts said this kind of plane is designed to fly with just one engine in an emergency, raising questions over whether something else may have caused the crash.
Spanair confirmed Thursday that an MD-82 was forced to make an emergency landing Saturday on a flight from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands to Madrid because of problems with both of its engines.
The plane landed in the nearby island of Gran Canaria, the destination of Wednesday's flight.
A company official speaking on condition of anonymity said he did not know if the same plane was involved in both cases. After the crash, the company now has eight MD82s.
The airline said the pilot of the U.S.-built MD-82 airliner initially reported a problem with a gauge that measures temperature outside the plane. The takeoff was delayed while the problem was repaired.
During the second takeoff attempt, the plane crashed at the end of the runway, burning and largely disintegrating.
From Washington, the National Transportation Safety Board said it will send a team of investigators to assist in the probe.
The morgue has been set up at Madrid's main convention center — the same facility used for relatives to identify bodies after the March 11, 2004 Islamic terror attacks that killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains.
Spanair chartered a plane in the Canary Islands to fly in relatives of people killed in the crash.
Spanair is Spain's second largest airline, after Iberia. It is a money-loser, though, and owner SAS put it up for sale more than a year ago, although it failed to find a buyer.
A cost-saving plan calls for withdrawing older, less fuel-efficient planes like some of its MD-82s, eliminating some routes and laying off a third of its 3,000-member workforce.
Hours before the crash, the Spanish pilots union SEPLA said Spanair pilots might go on strike to protest uncertainty over their future. The union statement was withdrawn after the crash.

Spanair says the plane that crashed in Madrid experienced overheating in an air intake valve prior to a first attempt at takeoff. It is not clear if this had anything to do with the crash that killed 153 of the 172 people aboard. Company spokesman Javier Mendoza says the device, called an air intake probe, was reporting overheating in the front of the plane under the cockpit.
He said Thursday that technicians corrected the problem by "de-energizing" the probe, or turning it off. He says this is standard procedure.
Spanair says the plane was cleared by company technicians after the problem was fixed. The plane crashed on its second attempt to take off.

Distraught relatives of the 153 victims of the Madrid holiday jet disaster struggled Thursday to identify burned body parts as investigators scoured the wreckage for clues. Cranes lifted debris of the Spanair MD-82 from a field next to the Madrid-Barajas airport runway as Spanish media highlighted the financial problems and cost-cutting measures carried out by the budget carrier.
Thousands of people held silent tributes to the victims in Madrid and other cities while three days of national mourning has been declared.
"Inferno at Barajas," was the headline used by newspapers to describe the crash of the jet, carrying 162 passengers -- including two babies and 20 other children -- and 10 crew on Wednesday afternoon.
Having returned to the terminal once because of a technical problem, the jet was taking off for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands when it veered to the right of the runway before breaking up in flames.
Transport Minister Magdalena Alvarez said the jet had got about 50 metres (200 feet) off the ground before it came down. She said 153 people were killed and 19 injured, four of whom remain in "very serious" condition.
The bodies were taken to a Madrid congress centre, where the 191 victims of the March 2004 Madrid train bombing were also placed.
A special flight brought friends and family members from Las Palmas, and were taken to the makeshift morgue to identify the remains.
One Red Cross psychologist described the atmosphere was "calm" but the identification process was slow.
Alvarez said it would take two days to identify all the victims. "Up to now they have been identified with their fingerprints and in certain cases by there will have to be DNA tests," she said.
One of the 19 survivors recalled seeing bodies scattered everywhere as she escaped the burning wreckage.
"I lifted my head and all I saw were scattered bodies," Ligia Palomino, a doctor, told El Pais newspaper.
Palomino said she was only semi-conscious after the crash but woke up when a fuel tank exploded.
The authorities did not immediately confirm media reports that the left engine was on fire during takeoff.
Some experts said the fire in the engine may not be enough to explain the accident .
Spanish media said the pilot had earlier signaled a malfunction in an exterior temperature gauge.
Alvarez said the plane had taxied to the runway once, before turning back because of a technical problem. Spanair maintenance staff then cleared the aircraft for takeoff.
Asked by national radio whether the company may be negligent, she said "I dare not say that."
But Spanish media criticised the airline.
"The crisis at Spanair led to a tragedy with 153 dead," El Mundo said on its front page. "The technical inspection by Spanair could have committed a fatal error."
Spanair, Spain's second largest airline, which is owned by Scandinavian carrier SAS, recently proposed shedding almost a quarter of its 4,000 staff because of the fuel price rise crisis and reduced demand. Its pilots had threatened a strike over conditions.
Spanair was founded in 1986 and says it has carried more than 104 million passengers from about 100 European destinations since then. It has a fleet of 65 jets.
SAS had put Spanair on the block earlier this year but announced in June that it was abandoning the sale plans due to the slowdown in the aviation sector.
The two black boxes were found and were to be analysed, as investigators scoured the wreckage for clues.
A spokeswoman at Barajas airport meanwhile said operations returned to normal on Thursday after delays and cancellations.
Spanair released the list of passengers late Wednesday, but not their nationalities.
Spanish media said four Germans, two Swedes, a Chilean and a Colombian were among the survivors. Authorities in Paris said three French nationals were killed.
The accident was Spain's worst plane disaster since a Boeing 747 belonging to Colombian airline Avianca crashed in Madrid in 1983 killing 180 and the deadliest in Europe since a Russian Tupolev crashed in Ukraine in 2006 killing 170.
The most deadly accident in the history of civil aviation occurred in Spain when two Boeing 747s collided at Tenerife airport in the Canary Islands on March 27, 1977, killing 583 people.
At the Beijing Olympics, Spanish sailors Fernando Echavarri and Anton Paz donned black armbands after winning gold medals to honour the disaster dead.
The duo climbed the podium wearing a black armband each despite Spanish media reporting that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had banned arm bands as well as the flying of the national flag at half-mast at the Spanish section of the Athletes Village.