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Almost 200 feared dead in Brazil plane crash

(AP/Reuters)
Updated: 2007-07-18 09:16

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A Brazilian passenger jet crashed and burst into
flames Tuesday after skidding off a runway and barreling across a busy
highway, officials said. All 176 people on board were feared dead in what
would be Brazil's deadliest air disaster, and at least 15 were killed on
the ground.

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at the site where a TAM airlines
commercial jet crashed in Sao Paulo, Tuesday, July 17, 2007. [AP]

The death toll officially stood at 40 after the crash of the Airbus-320
owned by TAM airlines, but that number was expected to rise sharply as
rescue workers, forensic experts and doctors scoured the wreckage in
South America's largest city.

The crash - Brazil's second major disaster in less than a year - happened
in a driving rain on a runway at Congonhas airport that had been
criticized in the past for being too short. The TAM Airlines jet slammed
into a gas station and a building owned by the airline, said Jose
Leonardi Mota, a spokesman with airport authority Infraero.

An official said early Wednesday that 25 charred bodies had been
recovered from what was left of the plane and that 15 people who were on
the ground either died at the scene or in hospitals.

Ten more people on ground were injured and hospitalized, according to a
Sao Paulo state public safety media official who spoke on condition of
anonymity because of department policy.

"I was told that the temperature inside the plane was 1,000 degrees
(Celsius), so the chances of there being any survivors are practically
nil," Sao Paulo State Gov. Jose Serra told reporters at the airport. That
temperature in Celsius is equivalent to about 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national
mourning for the victims, and presidential spokesman Marcelo Baumbach
told reporters late Tuesday that no cause would be immediately released
because it was premature to do so.

"His worries now are with the victims and the relatives of the victims.
That is main concern," Baumbach said, referring to Lula.

TAM Linhas Aereas Flight 3054 was en route to Sao Paulo from the southern
Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. TAM Airlines said there were 176 people
on board - 170 passengers and six crew members. A Brazilian congressman
was among those on the flight, his aide said.

The airline released an list of most of the people on the flight early
Wednesday, but did not specify their nationalities.

"TAM expresses its most profound condolences to the relatives and friends
of the passengers who were on Flight 3054," the company said.

Before the list was released, Lamir Buzzanelli said his 41-year-old son,
Claudemir, an engineer, had called him from Porto Alegre to say he was in
the plane and about to return from a business trip.

"My hopes are not too high because I've been calling him on his cell
phone, and all I get is his voice mail," Buzzanelli said, his eyes
tearing up.

The crash highlights the country's increasing aviation woes. In
September, a Gol Airlines Boeing 737 collided with an executive jet over
the Amazon rainforest, causing the passenger jet to crash, killing 154
people.

Since then, there have been questions about the country's underfunded air
traffic control systems, deficient radar system and the airlines' ability
to cope with a surge in travelers. Controllers - concerned about being
made scapegoats - have engaged in strikes and work slowdowns to raise
safety concerns, causing lengthy delays and cancelations.

TAM worker Elias Rodrigues Jesus, walking near the site just as the crash
happened, told The Associated Press that the jet exploded in between the
gas station and a warehouse owned by TAM.

"All of a sudden I heard a loud explosion, and the ground beneath my feet
shook," Jesus said. "I looked up and I saw a huge ball of fire, and then
I smelled the stench of kerosene and sulfur."

Critics have said for years that such an accident was possible at the
airport because its runway is too short for large planes landing in rainy
weather. Two planes had slipped off the runway in rainy weather on
Monday, but no one was injured in either incident.

In 1996, a TAM Airlines Fokker-100 skidded off the runway at the airport
and down a street before erupting in a fireball. The crash killed all 96
people on board and three on the ground.

A federal court in February briefly banned takeoffs and landings of large
jets because of safety concerns at the airport, which handles huge
volumes of flights for the massive domestic Brazilian air travel market.

But an appeals court overruled the ban, saying it was too harsh because
it would have severe economic ramifications and that there were not
enough safety concerns to prevent the planes from landing and taking off
at the airport.

After the September airliner crash, a Brazilian judge indicted four
flight controllers and the smaller jet's two US pilots on the equivalent
of manslaughter charges, but the defendants point to other problems -
from holes in radar coverage to the inability of some Brazilian
controllers to clearly speak English, the language of international
aviation.

Travelers angry over excessive delays and cancellations in recent months
have stormed airline check-in counters and runways in Brazil, and fist
fights have broken out in waiting areas.

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