A Spanish aircraft carrying 44 passengers and three crew crashed at Malaga airport yesterday killing four people and injuring 28.
The pilot died in hospital shortly after the crash while the co-pilot and stewardess are among the most seriously injured.
The accident occurred when the two-engine CN-235 propeller aircraft belonging to the Spanish airline, Binter Mediterranea, developed engine trouble.
It was on a flight to Malaga from the north African enclave of Melilla when the pilot contacted the control tower requesting permission for immediate landing.
However, the engines appeared to fail as they approached the runway causing the aircraft to come down on waste ground about 200 yards from the Pablo Picasso Airport.
Part of the wreckage fell on the main Costa del Sol N340 highway causing traffic chaos.
The aircraft broke in two, trapping many of the passengers inside the fuselage.
They complain it took 30 minutes before rescue services arrived to help them escape.
The dead passengers - two from Melilla, one from France - are reported to have been at the front of the aircraft and were killed when seats further back broke loose, crushing them.
Survivors say they received no warning of any problems with their flight and thus had no time to brace themselves for a crash.
"I was reading some papers when suddenly there was this enormous thud and we bumped along the ground," one survivor said. Another said the propeller on the left side of the aircraft seemed to stop completely in the minutes before the crash.