Video footage of the air crash at Barajas airport in Madrid does not show any engine explosion as the Spanair aircraft attempted to take off, contrary to earlier reports.

Witnesses had reported seeing a fire erupting in the left engine as the MD82 was approaching the end of the runway, which was thought to have been a factor in a disaster that killed 153 people.

After seeing footage taken by the Spanish airport authority, AENA, Spain’s civil aviation chief said that more than one failure likely caused the crash. Manuel Bautista, the Civil Aviation Director General, was quoted by El Pais as saying that the aircraft could not have crashed just because of trouble in one of the engines.

“A fault in a motor does not cause an accident,” he said. “Together with other causes it could be what brought down the plane. We have to determine the combination of causes that contributed to it.

“I am not sure that the motor failed.”

The video shows flight JK5022 advancing down the runway and climbing several metres before falling and hitting the tarmac. It then careers off the runway to the right.

The aircraft exploded only some seconds after hitting the ground, sources close to the investigation told El Pais. Sparks from the friction had ignited the plane’s fuel, they said, and the tragedy was inevitable.

Many of the 153 victims were burnt beyond recognition in the blaze that followed. Yesterday, officials said that at least 80 of the bodies would have to be identified through DNA testing. Only 19 of the 172 people on board were pulled from the wreckage alive, four of whom are still in critical condition.

Many of the victims were holidaymakers heading to the Canary Islands, while others were residents of the Spanish territory returning from holidays elsewhere. Several families were completely wiped out.

Of the 22 children and infants on board, only three survived. Today, one of the firefighters who attended the scene said that the mother of one of the children — Amalia Filloy, 41— told him to rescue her daughter Maria first. Mrs Filloy did not survive.

“Her mother handed her to us . . . and the woman stayed behind. There were too few firefighters at the beginning,” Francisco Martinez told reporters after visiting the 11-year-old, who has a broken leg, at a Madrid hospital. “The girl was totally disoriented, she did not complain or talk despite the great number of serious injuries that she had.”

Most of those on board the Spanair flight were Spanish nationals but citizens of at least 11 foreign countries are among the victims, according to the Government.

Spanair officials have so far declined to speculate on the cause of the crash but revealed yesterday that the plane had turned back from its first attempt at take-off because a gauge was indicating overheating. Technicians corrected the problem by turning the gauge off and cleared the plane for take-off.

The company said that it did not know if the gauge problem had anything to do with the accident, but aviation experts have said it is unlikely that such a seemingly minor problem could have brought down a modern plane.

Alvaro Gammicchia, a pilot for the Spanish airline Iberia, who has flown MD82s for seven years, said that even without the gauge “the plane would not fail to the point of causing a tragedy”.

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