Spain Papers Review - Friday November 21 2008
The sale of shares in the Spanish petrol company Repsol YPF dominates many of the front pages today.







Russian Lukoil set to become the largest shareholder in Repsol YPF
Talks continue in the Lukoil purchase of 20% of Repsol shares belonging to troubled construction company Sacyr Vallehermoso.



Real Madrid players offered financial bonus to win
Each player will get 120,000 Euro if the side wins the next five matches.



Barcelona town the first in Spain to install Solar Panels in the Cemetery
The plant at Santa Coloma de Gramenet generates enough power for 60 families.

Spain News : National

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Spanair defends the decision to allow the defective M82 plane to take off on Wednesday
By h.b. - Aug 22, 2008 - 12:43 AM

Photos from the crash site show just how the plane disintigrated on crashing and bursting into flames - Photo EFE

The first problem which prevented an earlier take off of the plane was isolated and could have nothing to do with the final cause of the tragedy.

Spainair has defended the decision to allow the second attempt at take off of the MD82 plane from Madrid which then crashed on Wednesday with the loss of 153 lives. They say an indicator showing a higher than normal temperature on an air intake was an ‘isolated’ matter and that a subsequent take off was ‘normal practice’.

Speaking at a press conference in Madrid, the General Deputy Director of Spanair, Javier Mendoza, gave the details of the decision which was taken, admitting that the fault was not totally repaired, but ‘isolated’ by the disconnection of a switch which supplied energy to the system. He refused to speculate on the causes of the accident saying that would only confuse matters.

The plane which finally crashed so tragically on Tuesday should have taken off at 1305 that afternoon, but a first take off was abandoned when the pilot detected ‘excessive heating in an air intake which supplied some of the plane’s systems’.

The President of the parent company SAS, Mat Jansson, declined to talk about how the tragedy would affect the already complicated economic situation for the company. Company sources say also that one of the black box flight recorders was damaged in the crash, and the investigation to determine the exact cause would last for months.

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