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MADRID, Spain -- A Spanish airliner packed with European vacationers headed for the Canary Islands crashed Wednesday during takeoff in Madrid, bursting into flames and killing more than 150 people aboard. At least 19 people, including two babies, survived, authorities said.

It was the deadliest accident at Madrid's ultramodern Barajas airport in a quarter of a century but the latest of mounting woes for Spanair, the Spanish unit of Scandinavia Airline Systems (SAS) and Spain's second-largest carrier.

"This is a huge tragedy," said Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose portfolio includes civil aviation.

Spanair officials said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash, but there were numerous indications that the plane, a 15-year-old U.S.-made McDonnell Douglas MD-82, was suffering technical problems before takeoff.

Several people said their relatives aboard the flight had telephoned before takeoff to report a departure delay of more than an hour and one aborted attempt to take off.

The investigation will reportedly focus on an engine that apparently caught fire as the plane lifted from the tarmac.

Spanair flight JK5022, with 175 passengers and crew members aboard, was barreling down a new runway at the sprawling Barajas airport about 2:45 p.m. on a clear, hot day, and had just begun to lift off when it veered to the right and plowed into a tree-covered ravine.

The fuselage broke into at least two pieces, witnesses at the airport said, and burst into flames.

Scores of ambulances, fire trucks and other rescuers descended on the site, while helicopters overhead poured fire-retardant spray on the wreckage. White and gray smoke billowed into the air, visible for miles.

"I pulled out about seven people alive, and then it was all dead bodies," said Francisco Cruz, a private pilot who was among the people pressed into rescue service.

Rescuers dragged hot-to-the-touch corpses from the wreckage throughout the afternoon and the few survivors, many burned, were rushed to hospitals. Several of those who survived had been hurled from the plane by the impact and landed in a stream, where the water shielded them from burns.

Many of the scattered corpses were those of children, rescuers said.

Government spokesman Francisco Granados first said 26 survivors were found, but the number was later lowered to 19.

There were discrepancies in the number of people on board, apparently a product of whether infants were counted in the total, but authorities eventually agreed that at least 153 people had died.

The Spanair flight was headed for Las Palmas, a popular summer vacation spot on one of the largest islands of the Canary archipelago off West Africa. Many of those on board were families, some with small children, destined for late-August holidays, and a number had originated in Germany and other parts of northern Europe, officials said.

Tearful, stunned family members arriving at airports here in Madrid and in Las Palmas were whisked away to privacy and to await confirmation of their relatives' fate.

One woman, speaking later with reporters at a Madrid hospital, said her twin sister had been thrown from the plane and survived. She suffered broken ribs but otherwise was OK.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero interrupted his summer vacation in southern Spain and returned to Madrid, where a makeshift morgue was set up at the city's main convention center.

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