[steam_cannon]

Not enough fuel, a plane will drop out of the sky.
Not enough maintenance, same deal.
Either way, high fuel prices could be behind it...

[eXpat]

According to spanish press, the company (Spanair) was struggling financially, and they wanted to go on strike, since the management was pressuring maintenance personnel and pilots, to disregard procedures, and work extra hours (link in spanish ).

[TheDude]

Spanair pilots threatened strike an hour before crash

Pilots at Spanair had threatened to go on strike only an hour before yesterday’s crash.

Threatened with job cuts, they had accused the carrier – which has run up large losses for its parent, the Scandinavian airline SAS – of “organised chaos” and failing to have a proper business plan.

The airline, which has a fleet of 63 aircraft and employs more than 3,500 staff, is leaking money, labouring under the huge cost of jet fuel. The burden of owning Spanair cost SAS a loss of £43 million in the first half of the year.

The plane had an annual inspection in January, however.

[Plantagenet]

"Witnesses said the left engine caught fire as the aircraft reached maximum speed and started to lift, causing the plane to crash to the ground and break into two parts.
According to El Pais, the disaster occurred during a second attempt at take off.
An earlier take-off was delayed after the plane's pilot reported a breakdown in a gauge that measures temperature outside the plane, Spanair spokeswoman Susana Vergara said.
It was on the second takeoff attempt that the plane crashed.
An earlier attempt had to be averted after technical issues, which resulted in an inspection of the plane. Passengers were reportedly warned they may need to change planes."

....This plane was having problems and aborted one taxi out to take-off ..... They brought it back but Spanair decided everything was OK and it was safe to fly...?.

[FireJack]

I think its pretty safe to say Spanair is going to go bankrupt a lot faster now and I hope people are going to take a closer look at how these airlines are cutting costs.

[threadbear]

Spanair pilots threatened strike an hour before crash

Pilots at Spanair had threatened to go on strike only an hour before yesterday’s crash.
Threatened with job cuts, they had accused the carrier – which has run up large losses for its parent, the Scandinavian airline SAS – of “organised chaos” and failing to have a proper business plan.
The airline, which has a fleet of 63 aircraft and employs more than 3,500 staff, is leaking money, labouring under the huge cost of jet fuel. The burden of owning Spanair cost SAS a loss of £43 million in the first half of the year.

The plane had an annual inspection in January, however.

If the SouthWest airlines fiasco is any indicator, annual inspections aren't always reliable.

I gotta say....airline companies can pack me like a sardine into one of their flying tin cans, toss me a rock hard hoagie for lunch, and sit me beside a screaming baby who fills his diaper, mid flight. It's all okay, as long as they're not cutting back on maintenance. Don't for God sakes tell me that they're adopting the same kind of scrimping and cutting of corners in the maintenance dept. to help offset the cost of high fuel prices.

[heroineworshipper]

Planes have to be flown to foreign countries for outsourced maintenance. No fuel, no maintenance. There will be more crashes & safety fines, but the safety fines are now less than the cost of flying to Brazil for maintenance.

[AirlinePilot]

Speculating immediately after any crash is one of the most assinine and childish things I see the press do. It happens every time there is a major air disaster. Your all smart enough in here to know not to do exactly that.

There is little hard information yet other than that an MD-80 series aircraft had some sort of major problem which caused it to go down shortly after it got airborne.

I fly the type, and there are many things which could cause such a problem. Stop speculating and let the investigators do their job.

[lorenzo]

Speculating immediately after any crash is one of the most assinine and childish things I see the press do. It happens every time there is a major air disaster. Your all smart enough in here to know not to do exactly that.

There is little hard information yet other than that an MD-80 series aircraft had some sort of major problem which caused it to go down shortly after it got airborne.

I fly the type, and there are many things which could cause such a problem. Stop speculating and let the investigators do their job.

We're trying to go beyond the mere technicalities of this crash here. We're trying to look at context.

The exact cause of the crash doesn't interest me.

[AirlinePilot]

We're trying to go beyond the mere technicalities of this crash here. We're trying to look at context.

The exact cause of the crash doesn't interest me.

Than your just grasping at straws.

Context? Accidents happen everywhere humans are involved.

[Lighthouse]

You guys are completely nuts. I'll give you that.

What comes next? Lorenzos girlfriend does not sleep with him anymore.

The reason: Peakoil and high fuel prices.

[heroineworshipper]

The investigators R bought & paid for. Besides, it's all about being ahead of the news. U think airline food is bad now? Wait until the cannibalism begins.

[lorenzo]

You guys are completely nuts. I'll give you that.

What comes next? Lorenzos girlfriend does not sleep with him anymore.

The reason: Peakoil and high fuel prices.

Look, there have been several reports about airliners cutting back on important maintenance tasks, pilots have spoken out about their bosses forcing them to carry less fuel, so much so that they called it "dangerous", and strikes and serious social tensions are dominating the industry.

This clearly creates a context in which the risk of accidents increases. Nobody is suggesting a direct link between high fuel prices and that crash. Many are suggesting a context that could have played a role, and at the root of which are high fuel prices.

[Sys1]

I don't think this event is related to peak oil, but I'm certain peak oil could make this event fatal to airliners in the coming years.

[kevincarter]

About a Year ago or so I saw someone posting here that he was looking at countries like Spain to see when they flunk, once that happened it’d mean that the first domino piece had been dropped.
So, news from Spain: in two months the Government has gone from “We have more money than ever” to “Recession”
I personally know this guy, he made a good pile of money out of poor desperate young people looking for a house where to settle, you have to live somewhere, he built houses, hundreds of them. He made millions upon people signing on the dotted line for overpriced houses, he got more money than he had ever dreamed and then he, and all the bastar*s like him, decided to double the bet, he asked for mega credit and built even more houses, and then, just when he was about to finish the last ones…. KABOOM, the whole real estate market stopped, not gradually, just full stop, like it had hit a concrete wall. Now he is giving up all his savings to the bank month after month, all his fortune, his retirement, everything, sold all his cars... He and his wife have to eat with grandma’s pension and his wife for the first time in her life has to get a job, a shitty job that of course can’t keep. And all I have to say to both of them is: MUOAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

[Madpaddy]

For above post, insert ireland instead of Spain and you get the picture here as well.

Muuhahhahahhahhaahahhahahahahahah

[Tyler_JC]

For above post, insert Ireland instead of Spain and you get the picture here as well. Muuhahhahahhahhaahahhahahahahahah

Just how bad is it in Ireland? I'm planning on studying abroad all of next year in Ireland and I hate to think that I'm moving there just as everything is collapsing.

Have any insider information, Madpaddy?

[Madpaddy]

Tyler,

It's bad by recent years standards but nothing at all compared to the recession of the 80's when we had 20% unemployment. The projections is 6% unemployment next year. Don't let it stop you coming by any means. I think you'ld love it here. We have an aupair at the moment from Utah and she is having the time of her life and is planning on emigrating here to study as well.

Tommy Tiernan on Fire and Unemployment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTdvJGsZFxM

[green_achers]

Well, on the subject of dominoes, we in the US need not look as far as Europe for examples. I was talking to a local farmer and his son here the other day and found myself trying to explain the current financial crisis. At one point, I was talking about real estate defaults in the hot markets and the effects they were having on many of the largest banks. I said something about the fear that the bank failures in those areas would spread (domino-like) to local or regional banks, and the son, who used to be in construction acted like a light bulb went off. He started telling me about developers in suburban Jackson walking into banks and throwing the keys on the bank manager's desk and walking away. I said something about the fact that now instead of their loan, the bank now has a property valued at an over-inflated sum they probably can't sell for anything. The son said, "No, those houses are only half finished."

[virgincrude]

It depends what you mean by a country 'flunking'. If you think there are starving zombie hordes running the streets, well we aint flunked yet. Whatever the domino effect is supposed to be, Spain (and Madpaddy's Ireland) are fully fledges members of the EU which in total is now the world's number one economic powerhouse. It's hard to see how or what this domino effect is precisely, apart from the fact that the whole world is experiencing a pre-recession, or a fully fledged recession, complete with stagflation/inflation. Spain's problems, although directly linked with the US sub-prime effect, are largely home-grown: the same kind of dick-witted gambling on construction and development which leaves the majority of regional savings banks on the brink of extermination. (The majority of these 'cajas' have 46% of their assets sunk in property ....)

For what it's worth.

From over here, (I am in Spain) it looks like there is no single country in the world worse off than the United States right now, with people being kicked out of their homes to live in cars, job losses rising, consumer confidence down the toilet etc., Oh yes, and there's the small problem of a $7 Billion nationalisation scheme whereby every US tax payer would be saving the asses of a bunch of gamblers .....

Still, to pretend Spain was NOT in deep shit, would be naive. Your story is that of hundreds, possibly thousands of other people who played the construction/housing bubble until it burst. I have photos of a 'macro' development begun at the height of the bubble, which simply defies the imagination in it's sprawling lunacy. A guy who used to make a living digging wells (hence his nickname El Pocero), turned his hand to construction and whipped up funding for his very own suburb of Madrid, complete with park dedicated to his mother, and life size statue of himself.

The development stands unfinished today, a testament to the madness which has brought Spain to the same circumstances as the US. Initially El Pocero planned to build 13,508 apartments, but only has a licence to build 5,096 which would multiply by 6 the number of ihabitants currently in the tiny village of Sesenya. Currently 2,536 of these are licenced for habitation, but the majority of these are empty apartments bought towards the end of the boom, for renting. There are only 750 apartments inhabited.

There is absolutely NOTHING in the immediate vicinity, except access to two highways leading to Madrid. Sesenya does not have enough water for it's own inhabitants, let alone the thousands more who could move in ... the regional water company does not yet have the pipes built to take drinking water to most of these blocks. There is NO bus service, nor any other kind of public transport, so Residencia Hernando is hit by the double whammy of the bottom dropping out of the housing market and the fluctuations of the price of petrol. Residencia Fransico Hernando has to be one of the most ridiculous and scandalous examples of the lunacy which governed the country's economics over the past 20 years.

Today, if you drive by on the deserted highway to Madrid, you'll see a forest of cranes abandoned next to their unfinished blocks sitting in the middle of a vast agricultural area of 'secano'. And this is just one of hundreds of similar cases all over the country.

Still, it seems the UK is more seriously hit by the global crisis, and as one seeing it from the inside, I have to say Spain is not yet completely down the toilet ....