A Spanish emergency rescue official says only 24 people survived the crash of a plane carrying 173.

A Spanish airliner bound for the Canary Islands swerved off the runway and caught fire during takeoff from the Madrid airport.

It is the height of the summer tourist season in Spain, and Spanair flight JK5022 was bound for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, a popular resort off West Africa.

Thick, white smoke rose above Barajas airport as helicopters and fire trucks dumped water on the plane, which ended up in a wooded area at the end of the runway at Terminal 4.

Spanair says the plane was an MD-82.

The newspaper El Pais said the plane was delayed an hour by technical problems. The paper says the jetliner managed to get slightly off the ground but crashed near the end of the runway.

Click the links to the right to see the first raw video from the crash scene.