Plane with 170 aboard crashes at Sao Paulo
Charlene
crashed and burst into flames in Sao Paulo on Tuesday after skidding
off a runway that has been criticized as being too short in a driving
rain, the nation's airport authority said.
There were no immediate reports of deaths by authorities, but a
witness said he saw one charred body as flames shot into the sky and
clouds of black smoke billowed into the air after the crash.
The Tam airline's Airbus-320 skidded off the runway at Congonhas
airport, then crossed a busy road at the height of rush hour in South
America's largest city before slamming into a gas station, said Jose
Leonardi Mota, a spokesman with airport authority Infraero.
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."
Jesus said he saw one charred body, and Globo TV reported that at
least eight people were being treated for injuries. It was not clear
whether they were passengers or had been in the building.
Tam Linhas Aereas flight 3054 was en route to Sao Paulo from the
southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre with between 150 and 170
people on board, Mota said. The government-run Agencia Brasil news
agency said there were 170 passengers and eight crew members on the
jet.
"At this moment, we cannot determine the extent of possible injuries
suffered by the airplanes occupants and crew members," the airline
said in a statement.
The accident happened during heavy rains, and critics have warned for
years that such an accident was possible at the airport because its
runway is too short for large planes landing when the runway is wet.
A federal court in February briefly banned takeoffs and landings of
large jets at the airport 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 on three types of planes,
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 the airport.
Tuesday's crash came 10 months after Brazil's deadliest crash, a
September collision between a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing
(NYSE:BA) 737 and an executive jet over the Amazon rainforest.
All 154 people on the Gol jet died. The executive jet landed safely.
The crash highlighted Brazil's increasing aviation woes, as a surge in
travelers overwhelms underfunded air traffic control systems. A
Brazilian judge indicted four flight controllers and the smaller jet's
two U.S. 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.
Controllers -- concerned about being made scapegoats -- have engaged
in strikes and work slowdowns to raise safety concerns, causing or
exacerbating lengthy delays and cancelations.
Angry travelers have stormed airline check-in counters and runways in
Brazil, and fistfights have broken out in waiting areas.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Charlene <charlene...@gmail.com> wrote:
> SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- A plane with as many as 170 people aboard
> crashed and burst into flames in Sao Paulo on Tuesday after skidding
> off a runway that has been criticized as being too short in a
> driving rain, the nation's airport authority said.
They are saying now that 180 people were aboard and at least 15 on the
ground were killed. I have been watching a lot of news and I have
seen no footage of the crash scene, except on Telemundo and Univision,
who are both showing quite a bit of film.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
danny burstein
>In the previous article, Charlene <charlene...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- A plane with as many as 170 people aboard
>> crashed and burst into flames in Sao Paulo on Tuesday after skidding
>> off a runway that has been criticized as being too short in a
>> driving rain, the nation's airport authority said.
>They are saying now that 180 people were aboard and at least 15 on the
>ground were killed. I have been watching a lot of news and I have
>seen no footage of the crash scene, except on Telemundo and Univision,
>who are both showing quite a bit of film.
Full color full page front page of today's NY Post, with
two full pages inside. Kind of strange since it was an
internal Brazil flight with no, or few, NYers onboard
I'm trying to guess which stories they're burying...
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Odd Bob
@reader2.panix.com:
>
> In the previous article, Charlene <charlene...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- A plane with as many as 170 people aboard
>> crashed and burst into flames in Sao Paulo on Tuesday after skidding
>> off a runway that has been criticized as being too short in a
>> driving rain, the nation's airport authority said.
>
> They are saying now that 180 people were aboard and at least 15 on the
> ground were killed. I have been watching a lot of news and I have
> seen no footage of the crash scene, except on Telemundo and Univision,
> who are both showing quite a bit of film.
CNN did a couple brief updates on it last night, but spent most of their time on the senate sleepover
(sheesh). My wife has friends in Sao Paolo (nowhere near the crash, fortunately) and spent the evening
watching news of it, including video, on Brazilian websites.
-- Bob