Spain's civil aviation authority on Monday defended the safety record and procedures at Spanair, which has come under fire since last week's crash in Madrid that killed 154 people.

"In 2008, Spanair carried out more than 100 inspections of all type and all the inspections were fine," Manuel Bautista, the head of civil aviation authority AENA, told a news conference.

"Spanair has a good image on security," he said.

"In all the inspections we have not detected any problem that affects security or a link with cost-cutting policies."

A Spanair MD-82 crashed and burst into flames just after taking off from Madrid's airport on a flight to the Canary Islands on Wednesday. The death toll Monday stood at 154, with 18 injured, including three children.

Some Spanish newspapers have tried to link the crash to Spanair's financial problems and cost-cutting measures.

Spanair, Spain's second-largest airline, announced in July it would shed 1100 of its 4000 employees and cut its 65-plane fleet by 15 in September as part of a restructuring plan.

Just hours before the crash the national pilots' union Sepla had accused the carrier, which is owned by Scandinavian airline SAS, of "organisational chaos" and "serious deficiencies" in its operations, daily El Pais reported Thursday.

On Sunday, another Spanair MD-82 jet made an unscheduled landing at the airport in the southern city of Malaga after the pilot detected a "small problem with a backup electrical generator."

AENA inspected that plane "as a precautionary measure because of what had just happened (in Madrid)," although normally this would not have been necessary, said Bautista.

He declined to comment on the causes of Wednesday's crash, but said "there were probably errors and probably more than one."

Video images held by AENA showed that the US-made MD-82 twin-engine jet crashed and burst into flames moments after taking off on Wednesday.

Spanair has said that an air intake valve was repaired just before takeoff, but experts said that fault was not to blame for the accident and that a combination of as yet unknown faults caused the disaster.

Bautista also defended aviation security in general in Spain, noting the number of people working for AENA had risen 40 percent in four years, "in order to instill confidence in the air transport security system."

AENA has made an "enormous effort in terms of inspections," with 9710 carried out last year, he said.

AFP