Spain: airline considered switching planes

The airline involved in last week's plane disaster in Madrid considered switching aircraft at the last minute because of a mechanical problem but ultimately went ahead with the plane that ended up crashing, a government minister said Friday.

Spanair Flight JK5022 was delayed for about an hour because of what the airline has called a minor glitch with an air temperature gauge near the cockpit. This happened while the MD-82 was still on the ground, and the plane returned to the gate where mechanics disconnected the gauge and declared the plane fit to fly.

On a second attempt at takeoff, the plane crashed, burned and largely disintegrated, killing 154 of 172 people aboard. Spanair has insisted the faulty gauge had nothing to do with the Aug. 20 disaster.

Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, addressing a parliamentary panel Friday, said Spanair at one point "indicated to the airport the possibility of replacing the plane with another."

"However, in the end it also told the airport control center that it had decided to continue with the plane ... which is the one that crashed," the minister said.

So far Spanair has not said anything publicly about having considered changing planes. Calls to its press office went unanswered Friday afternoon.

The Development Ministry handles civil aviation in Spain.

One of the survivors of the crash, Ligia Palomino Riveros, a 42-year-old Colombian-born Spaniard, told The Associated Press last weekend that when the plane returned to the gate because of the gauge problem, two buses arrived and she thought they were for taking people to another plane.

But the passengers remained on the plane that ended up crashing.

The director of Spanish civil aviation, Manuel Bautista, also told the AP last week that the gauge problem required further study. He said that, depending on what else was happening to the plane right before the crash, the gauge malfunction could conceivably have played a role.