A 15 year-old Spanish plane heading to Canary Islands crashed on takeoff and burst into flames at Madrid airport on Wednesday at 2:45 p.m. local time, 153 people killed.

Spanair flight JK 5022 carried 162 passengers and 10 crew members; four were traveling as passengers including Swedes and Dutch, among the passengers, twenty-two were children and two infants. Only Nineteen people have survived but eight of them were in “very serious condition”, the head of the emergency and rescue services in Madrid said.

“The fuselage is destroyed. The plane burned. I have seen a kilometer of charred land and few whole pieces of the fuselage. It is all destruction,” he added.

Investigators have been working to find the real causes the clash. One of the witnesses said it seemed to be “an error in takeoff” that caused the accident but one of the Spanish media and sources claimed the plane’s left engine had caught fire.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spanish Prime Minister has canceled his holidays in southern Spain and rushed to the crash place and promised investigation into the causes will be made thoroughly.

“The government is deeply saddened, as are all Spaniards,” he told to the reporters at the airport.

The Spanish airline has been described as a struggling airline, set up 20 years ago. It is 94 per cent owned by the Scandinavian airline SAS. But last year SAS has tried to sale the airline after failing to attract investors.

It was the deadliest air accident in Spain since a Colombian airline’s Boeing 747 crashed in Madrid in 1983 killing 181 people.