MADRID - SPANAIR, the airline involved in a crash last month that killed 154 people in Madrid, had a technical problem on Thursday with one of its planes that had to make an unscheduled landing, a spokesman said.

Flight JK4113 from Spain's Mediterranean holiday island of Ibiza to Lisbon with 163 passengers on board landed on the neighbouring island of Mallorca because of a still undetermined technical problem, he said.

The plane left Ibiza at 0715 GMT (3.15 pm) and was diverted to Mallorca less than an hour later. The passengers were then put on another plane to continue their journey to the Portuguese capital.

Passengers told reporters in Lisbon that the Spanair plane took off from Ibiza on its third takeoff attempt.

'The only thing they noticed was that the plane must have had problems because during the takeoff it shook a great deal,' the father of one of the passengers, Mr Rui Serta, told Portuguese state television RTP.

A packed Spanair plane slammed into the ground tail-first and burst into flames just seconds after taking off August 20 from Madrid's airport for Las Palmas, the capital of Spain's Canary Islands. Only 18 people survived.

The plane had aborted an earlier takeoff due to a technical problem which was corrected while the passengers remained on the plane.

An investigation into the causes of the accident is underway. Press reports have put the blame on engine failure or faulty landing flaps.

Four days later a Spanair flight with 141 passengers on board from Barcelona to the Canary Island of Lanzarote made an unscheduled landing at Malaga airport because of an unspecified technical problem. -- AFP