At least 100 dead in Spanish plane crash

[jose]

BBC NEWS | Europe | Many dead in Madrid plane crash

There are conflicting accounts about the number of deaths, with some reports suggesting most of the passengers on the plane may be dead. Mr Moleno said he had seen as many as 20 people walking away from the wreckage.

The plane had 164 passengers and 9 crew
The left engine caught fire or exploded on take off

[jose]

The death toll is 146 persons, among the twenty six survivors are two babies, the plane was serviced by technicians two hours before the crash

[Nono]

Seems ABC is reporting that some passengers wanted to get off the aircraft after a first take-off attempt was aborted, but the crew refused to let them leave.

Which could mean anything, such as grief-stricken relatives casting around for somebody to blame.

But things may be set to get scandalous.

[jose]

An automated voice warned "stall, stall, stall" in the cockpit of Spanair flight JK5022 to Las Palmas moments before it climbed 40 feet into the air and then flopped back down onto its tail and careered off the runway. The McDonnell Douglas MD-82, loaded with 10,130 litres of fuel, shot across half a mile of scrub before falling into a small ravine and bursting into flames, said the report, published on the Transport Ministry's website. Only 18 passengers survived the accident, Spain's worst aviation disaster since 1983. Data from the plane's black box flight recorder showed that the flaps were flat and not pointed down to give the plane lift. The Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Commission adds that slats at the front of the wing not deployed, either. Despite this, the take-off warning system failed to ring, which might have given pilots time to abort the takeoff. It added that both engines appeared to be working normally.

Madrid Plane Crash Caused By Faulty Flaps - Report | World News | Sky News

[Nono]

Oh well, that'll do it alright. This wasn't the first case of forgetting to put out flap for takeoff on this aircraft. Same thing happened in Detroit 21 years ago: McDonnell_Douglas_MD-80

But you notice that all the survivors' accounts that flooded the media just after the crash spoke of engine problems.

Which just goes to show that there's virtually never any point in speculating about these things until a thorough investigation has been carried out.

It sounds (says he, speculating) like the crew got distracted by Problem A and therefore neglected to do Thing B, which caused Fatal Problem C.
That's a classic.

[loser]

Perhaps the flaps not being down indicates that the pilots DID attempt to abort the take-off.

[Nono]

No. When you're just airborne is no time to abort, because what will happen is exactly what happened to them.

There are two key speeds on takeoff: "V1" and "V2", each calculated before takeoff in terms of the runway length, wind, aircraft loading, temperature and air pressure.

V1 is the no-turning-back speed, beyond which you have to continue with takeoff even if you suddenly have an engine failure or whatever, since you won't have enough runway left to stop (among other reasons).

V2 is your "aircraft safety speed". It guarantees a specific climb gradient up to 1,500 foot for obstacle clearance.

These guys, by definition, had let V1 go by on them.

I read in the Guardian this past week that the flight-data recorder shows zero flaps and a failure of the sound warning to alert the crew to the fact (as evidenced by the cockpit voice recorder).

This investigation is far from over.