Five childless Swedish couples heading for Colombia to adopt... Plane crash

Five childless Swedish couples heading for Colombia to adopt...

Nov. 27, 1983

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Five childless Swedish couples heading for Colombia to adopt children were among the dead aboard a jumbo jet that crashed near Madrid Sunday, officials said.

'They were young, strong happy people in their best years,' said Monika Lind, spokeswoman for a Stockholm Adoption Center.

The couples had waited between one and three years for a chance to adopt, she said.

'These people had gone through so much. They were unable to have children themselves,' she said. 'How happy they were when we told them to go ahead and adopt.'

All five couples were booked on the same Avianca flight, although they received their permission to adopt separately.

'It was a mere chance that they traveled on the same plane,' Lind said.

The plane, which crashed some 12 miles short of Madrid's Barajas airport, was to have continued on to Caracas and Bogota.

Five Colombian children, aged a few months to four years, were waiting in orphanages in Medellin and Cali for their new mothers and fathers to arrive, Lind said.

'It is up to Colombian authorities to decide what to to next,' she said.

The adoption center, a private, non-profit association, helps Swedish couples adopt children from several countries, including Colombia.

The five couples were among at least 19 Swedes who died in the plane crash, foreign ministry spokesman Lars Lonnback said.

The Boeing 747 was owned by Scandinavian Airlines System but was rented to Avianca for three years as of August, 1982.

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