The Government of Spain has instituted on August 20 as the national day of the Victims of Air Accidents and their families at the request of the association of Affected by Flight JK5022 (which was heading to Gran Canaria), which this day remembers the anniversary of the tragedy of Spanair that cost the lives of 154 people in 2008.
The agreement that converts on August 20 on the day on which Spain will honor the memory of all those who have died in aviation accidents was adopted in the Council of Ministers last Tuesday, as recorded in the summary of the meeting published by La Moncloa.
In a statement sent this Friday to Efe in Gran Canaria, where the Spanair plane that crashed 17 years ago at the Madrid-Barajas airport, the JK5022 Association recalls that in 2022 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has already established February 20 as an International Day to remember the victims of this type of accidents.
Now, Spain will have a national day, on a date that coincides with the anniversary of the last major plane crash that has suffered in its territory, that of the Spanair flight.
“Among the lessons learned from the tragedy of the JK5022 flight is to maintain the light of hope for the memory of the innocents who died not only that August 20, 2008 in Madrid, but of all Spanish citizens who died tragically in air accidents,” says the association in its statement.
In his opinion, that is “the only formula of avoiding errors similar to those who produced their deaths, keeping in mind the sacrifice of their lives that have written with blood the advances of air security in national and international civil aviation.”
The Association of Family Victims JK5022 emphasizes that this August 20 will be 17 years of the tragedy of Barajas, this time as a national day for their memory.
“This statement of August 20 as National Day of Air Accident Victims and their families will remain as the eternal memory and symbol that living without forgetting is compatible with the work in favor of the common good that the AVJK5022 performs under the leadership of Pilar Vera,” he adds.
