Spain plane crash pilot dies

MADRID, Spain -- The death toll in the Spanish plane crash has risen to four after the pilot died in hospital.

Spanish airline, Binter Mediterraneo, said Captain Mariano Ruano, 55, died from his injuries sustained in the crash, reported the Associated Press.

The Spanish pilots' union SEPLA said Ruano's skillful flying had averted a greater tragedy on Wednesday.

His CN-235 twin-engine passenger plane, with 47 people on board, crash-landed on a road near an airport in the southern Spanish city of Malaga at about 10:15 a.m., (0815 GMT), killing three passengers and injuring 25 others.

An investigation has been started to determine the cause of the crash.

The three passengers who died were later identified as Emilio Martinez Plaza, 67, and Mohamed Mohamed Uassani, both residents of Melilla; and Herve Troadec, 41, a French citizen.

Moments before the crash, Ruano had reportedly radioed that he was having engine trouble and asked for ambulances to be dispatched.

"The pilot had an engine failure," said Malaga provincial police chief Jose Torres Hurtado. "With a bit more altitude, he would have made it."

CNN's Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman said the pilot requested an emergency landing as he approached the Pablo Ruiz Picasso Airport.

Flight 8261, which was carrying 44 passengers and three crew, was on its regular run from Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the northern Moroccan coast.

"I was reading and then there was a huge bang and chaos," one survivor told CNN.

The broken fuselage blocked two lanes of the busy national highway N340 between Malaga and the resort town Torremolinos, backing up traffic for miles (kilometers).

Police said several passengers were trapped for a time inside the plane. Others broke open a window and escaped through an emergency door.

Police officer Francisco Guzman, one of the first to arrive on the scene, told state radio: "At the first door I found there was an air hostess with both arms broken, so I got her out of her belt and got her out of the plane.

"The first seats were all piled up on top of each other and it was impossible to get people out easily."

Paramedics set up a field hospital to treat people at the scene of the crash.

All the passengers except Troadec were believed to be Spaniards.

The airline said the cause of the accident had not been determined. Binter is a former subsidiary of the national airline, Iberia.

It was the fourth accident involving the company's CN-235s this year, including three that crashed in Turkey between January and May, killing 41 people, said the government's Efe news agency.

There are 15 daily flights between Melilla and the Spanish mainland. Malaga is the main airport serving Spain's south coast tourist resorts and is at its busiest in August.