BONN, April 12 -- German state prosecutors said Friday they will charge a Dortmund maintenance company and its subcontractor with criminal negligence and manslaughter in connection with the Dusseldorf airport fire in which 16 people died Thursday. Welding torches have been established as the cause of sparks that traveled down ducts to ignite electrical wiring. The resulting ball of fire, which devastated half of the terminal, unleashed clouds of toxic black smoke which asphyxiated the victims. Dusseldorf Prosecutor Rolf Chanteaux said 'all those concerned' with the maintenance work will be charged. Eyewitnesses described how airport air conditioners sucked up the poisonous fumes and then blew them into the arrival hall, creating a dense smog as panicking passengers tried to escape. While the airport's fire crews were immediately informed of the fire, airport authorities were criticized for a nearly 30-minute delay in alerting the Dusseldorf fire department. 'By the time we arrived on the scene, there was nothing we could do,' a Dusseldorf fire official said. Fire brigades from Duesseldorf and the surrounding areas fought the fire for five hours before the blaze was brought under control. Some airport staff criticized the lack of any announcements to help passengers and staff escape the deadly blaze. Airport chief Berndt Rietdorf claimed all the smoke detectors worked, but a taxi-driver outside the terminal raised the alarm when he saw a plume of black smoke coming from the building. By the time the airport's firefighters arrived, burning roof tiles, which had been ignited by electric cables, were already dropping into a flower shop directly below the work site, witnesses said.
The airport has been temporarily closed until Sunday, but authorities could decide to shut it indefinitely. Fire service experts fear the terminal could be contaminated with highly toxic dioxine and furane. The interior minister for the state of North Rhine Westphalia, Franz- Josef Kniola, promised a review of safety standards. 'We will take a special look at the problem of cable ducts,' he said. The welders were working in the crawl space above a flower shop between the arrival and departure floors of the main airport terminal. The German press agency DPA reported that older airports like Dusseldorf's, Germany's second busiest, have not been required to enforce the latest safety standards for large public buildings. These include a requirement to shut down and seal air conditioners in the event of fire. Welding sparks have been the cause of at least two other serious fires in North Rhine Westphalia, one in the Dusseldorf subway and a second in a clinic in Aachen. Eight survivors of the deadly fire were treated in hospitals Friday but were reported out of danger. Six French nationals, two Italians and one Briton were among the 16 victims who burned to death or breathed in poisonous smoke and fumes released by the fire Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, the nearby Konrad Adenauer airport, which serves Cologne and Bonn, was struggling to cope with the extra traffic and some passengers waited for up to two hours before the overloaded terminal could cope with arrivals. The Dusseldorf airport serves more than 15 million of the 110 million airline passengers who use German airports each year and is exceeded in congestion only by Frankfurt's airport. Germany's Interior Ministry ordered flags on public buildings to be flown at half-mast to honor the victims of the tragedy.