Madrid air crash victims
The tragedy remains unexplained and Baton told newspaper there was an extremely tense atmosphere inside the Hotel Auditorium in Madrid where relatives were meeting Friday with Spanair officials. Only 19 people - out of 172 passengers and crew - survived the crash of the twin-engine plane bound for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, Spain's worst air disaster in 25 years.
The head of the team investigating the accident, Emilio Valerio, said the results of his inquiries would not be known for up to a month. Among the little that is known for sure is that the plane had already abandoned one take-off attempt because of a faulty air intake temperature gauge, before making its fateful ascent. It was revealed on Thursday that one worried passenger asked to leave the plane just before the accident but was prevented from doing so by the crew, a fact that only acted to ramp up the anger and tensions over the disaster.
"I'll kill the bastards who did this!" shouted one man, his face streamed with tears, as he drove away Thursday night from the convention centre near the airport that has been set up as a temporary mass mortuary.
Baton, who lives in the Seine-et-Marne area near Paris, said she did not feel a strong need to identify those responsible for the accident. "That will not bring Ethan back, they are gone and they are not coming back. I don't need a culprit, or one or two years of an inquiry, before I grieve," she said. "I am waiting for Ethan to be identified, this should be quick since there were only a few children on board," she said in a soft and tired voice.
"Ethan lived four years and he was super happy during those four years. I am going to try to hang on to that," she added. Grief has been deepened by the painfully slow process of identifying the badly charred bodies of their loved ones. "The wait is the worst part for them, waiting for the police to contact them and give them news on their relatives," Maria Abengozar, the head of a Red Cross team of psychologists which is aiding the relatives, told reporters. 23/08/08 Canada
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