A SPANIARD who survived the Mexican air crash has spoken to the media from the Battlefield 5 military hospital in Durango, describing the impact as 'brutal'.
José Manuel Pulgar, 42, a miner from Mieres, Asturias was one of the 103 on board the Aeroméxico flight to the capital who all got out of the plane alive.
He is married to a Mexican woman and was on holiday with her in the Durango area, along with their two children aged five and eight, to attend his brother-in-law's wedding.
José Manuel had to go back to work at the Nicolasa mine in Hunosa, but his wife and children had opted to stay on a little longer with their family.
The Spaniard caught the internal flight from Durango to México DF, where he was due to catch a connecting flight to Madrid.
“The moment we crashed was brutal – we were flung in our seats like paper dolls,” José Manuel says.
It was the crew who opened the emergency exit doors and helped passengers out whilst flames spread rapidly through the aircraft.
“The overhead lockers broke and the cases went flying – everything was scattered on the floor, the whole plane was in chaos,” he revealed.
“I felt the heat of the fire on my back before I got out.”
José Manuel helped several other travellers out of the aircraft on his way through the emergency exit doors.
Nobody was killed in the air crash, although many of the 99 passengers and four crew were injured to varying degrees.
Although the black boxes have been found, the cause of the accident has not been clarified.
José Manuel says he was told that 'two very severe storms collided' just after take-off, and that the pilot attempted to turn the plane round to land in Durango again.
It crashed during the manoeuvre.
The Spanish passenger says he feels relatively well and is keen to get home to Spain, but is not sure when he will be discharged.
His neck will be in a collar for at least two weeks.
But the hardest part of his recovery will be psychological, José Manuel admits: in order to get home, he cannot avoid getting on an aeroplane.
“I know that the moment we take off I'm going to be terrified,” he confesses.
“But I hope that by the time I've flown another two or three times I'll have got over it.”
