MADRID (AP) – Spanish authorities on Sunday praised the bravery of farmworkers who helped pull two survivors away from the burning wreckage of an Airbus A400M military transport plane that had crashed near Seville airport.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy posted a photograph of himself on Twitter talking to a farmer who had helped save the crewmen injured in Saturday’s crash. Rajoy called the man “a hero for us all.”
Spanish state television TVE and regional newspaper Diario de Sevilla on Sunday featured interviews with Francisco Miranda Escudero, who described how he and three other men had seen two people emerging from the broken fuselage and jumping down four to five meters (13-16 feet) to the ground.
“The flames were horrifying and the continuous explosions tremendous,” said Miranda Escudero as he explained how he and Manuel Iglesias – the man in Rajoy’s photograph – had pulled the injured away from the explosions.
He said the two owners of the field where the plane crashed also ran over to help them drag the men to safety.