Madrid plane crash survivor tells of sharp dip and wobble

MADRID, Spain - The airliner that crashed last week in Madrid had just barely gotten airborne and its right wing dipped sharply before the plane started wobbling and went down, one of the few survivors of the disaster said yesterday.

Ligia Palomino Riveros, 42, a Colombian-born Spaniard, also said that after a seemingly minor technical malfunction forced the pilot to abandon a first takeoff attempt, she thought the airline was going to - and should - switch planes.

She said two buses were brought in next to the Spanair MD-82 bound for the Canary Islands, and she assumed these were to take passengers to another plane. They did not. Spanair did not respond to a query yesterday as to whether it had in fact contemplated putting the passengers on another aircraft.

The Spanair mechanic who dealt with the breakdown - a faulty air temperature gauge near the cockpit - and certified the plane as ready to fly has been questioned by police and crash investigators, Spanair confirmed yesterday.

Only 18 people survived Wednesday's tragedy at Madrid's airport, which killed 154 people. Palomino Riveros, who suffered a broken leg and a broken rib, was traveling with her husband Jose Flores, who also survived, and his sister, who died.

So far 53 bodies have been identified. Many of the rest were burned beyond recognition, and forensic teams have been using DNA techniques. Families traveled yesterday to a Madrid cemetery, where the scientific work is being done, to claim their loved ones and take them home. Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said he expected the identification process to conclude for the most part today.

Palomino Riveros gave one of very few survivor accounts that have been made public, sounding tired and weak as she spoke in a telephone interview from her hospital bed.

She said she had heard nothing to indicate that one of the plane's two engines exploded, as some media reports have said, quoting witnesses.

The plane crashed, burned and largely disintegrated on its second takeoff attempt, after Spanair dealt with what it has called a minor problem with the temperature gauge. It was detected while the plane was taxiing, and the aircraft returned to the gate for about an hour.

As the plane took off a second time down the runway, Palomino Riveros recalls, it "was moving very slowly" but eventually it became airborne.

"But then it made a turn, as if the wing dropped abruptly," she said. "We were still very low, very close to the ground."

After the plane got a bit higher, it began to "wobble from side to side," she said, describing this as the last thing she remembers before the crash.