Most of the 173 passengers and crew on board a packed plane bound for a popular European tourist destination were killed after it burst into flames during takeoff in Spain, emergency officials have said.

All but about 26 of the 173 people on board flight JK5022 were killed after the aircraft swerved off of a runway and crashed at Madrid's Barajas airport on Wednesday, emergency services sources said.

The Spanish interior ministry has confirmed at least 100 people died in the disaster and the Spanish government has declared three days of mourning..

The aircraft is reported to have been attempting an emergency landing.

Clouds of smoke were seen billowing from the runway after the plane, which had been taking off for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands off of West Africa, crashed at Terminal Four.

"It is a catastrophe," an emergency rescue service official said, as crews removed bodies and injured people from the aircraft belonging to Spanish airline Spanair.

Rachel Levin, reporting for Al Jazeera from the airport, said: "Black smoke is rising from the plane and the airport has been shut down.

"Ambulances are heading towards the scene."

Technical problems

A makeshift morgue was being set up at the city's main convention centre, officials said.

Chris Hodgkinson, technical director of the Guild of Airpilots and Air Navigators, told Al Jazeera: "One can only assume at this time that this was due to mechanical failure.

"It crashed close to the airport and broke into two pieces."

Helicopters and fire engines pumped water onto the burning plane, which had crashed into a wooded area at the end of the runway.

The aircraft's "black box" flight data recorder has been retrieved.

The plane's takeoff had been delayed by about an hour due to technical problems.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, has interrupted his holiday in southern Spain to travel to Madrid airport, one of his officials said.

Flights cancelled

Madrid airport cancelled departures after the crash and restricted the number of aircraft arriving.

The MD-80 plane, which can carry up to 166 passengers, is operated by Spanair, Spain's second-biggest airline after Iberia, and is a subsidiary of Scandinavian carrier SAS. 

Five passengers on a Spanair flight from Spain's Basque region to  Barcelona were injured in an emergency evacuation on January 9,  2006.

The airline, which has a fleet of 65 jets, was founded in 1986 and says it has since carried more than 104 million passengers from about 100 European destinations to Spain.

It is a member of the Star Alliance network but recently proposed shedding almost a quarter of its 4,000 staff because of the fuel price rise crisis and reduced demand.