Investigators Warn Final Cause Has Not Been Determined

A number of Spanish newspapers reported Tuesday the Spanair plane that crashed on takeoff last month in Madrid did not have its flaps properly deployed... though officials have not released any official statements to that effect, and the investigation is still ongoing.

Citing reports in the Spanish media, BBC News said cockpit tapes recovered from the wreckage show the plane's pilots were not aware the flaps were not deployed because a cockpit alarm did not sound.

As ANN reported, the fully-loaded MD-82 crashed on takeoff from Barajas International Airport on August 20. All but 18 of the 172 passengers and crew onboard the plane were killed in the post-impact fire.

Despite early witness statements that one of the airliner's two turbofans was on fire as the plane struggled to take off, investigators later said they would take a close look at the flap settings at time of takeoff... but added it was too soon to say for certain what brought the plane down.

Given what's known of the accident situation, however -- a heavily-laden jet that failed to climb out of ground effect, on what should have been a routine takeoff from a 10,000-foot runway -- investigators added if there wasn't a power problem, one of the few remaining possibilities was an issue with the configuration of the plane's flaps and wing slats.

Officials cautioned anyone this week from jumping the gun in determining the flaps were to blame.

"In my experience an accident doesn't happen for a single reason," Spanish Interior Minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Monday. "We are going to wait for the report to be finished to find out what happened because there are many theories."

FMI: www.spanair.com, www.ntsb.gov, www.boeing.com