195 feared dead in Brazil crash

SAO PAULO – Rescue crews pulled dozens of bodies yesterday from an airliner that crashed and burst into flames at a Sao Paulo airport, as the number of people feared dead rose to 195 in what would be Brazil’s worst air disaster.

The TAM airlines Airbus-320 was en route to Brazil’s busiest airport from Porto Alegre in the nation’s south on Tuesday when it skidded on the rain-slicked runway, barrelled across a busy road and slammed into a gas station and TAM building. Yesterday, the airline raised the number of people aboard the plane by four to 180 and officials said the chance of finding survivors was near zero.A Sao Paulo public safety official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy said 15 bodies had been recovered from the ground.President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national mourning following Brazil’s second major air disaster in less than a year.In September, a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing 737 and an executive jet collided over the Amazon rain forest, killing 154 people in what had been the deadliest air disaster to date.Emergency workers had recovered 56 bodies from wreckage of the TAM airliner by early yesterday as well as the TAM airlines Airbus-320’s ‘black box’ flight data recorder, according to the Website of O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.Presidential spokesman Marcelo Baumbach said no cause would be immediately released because it was premature to do so.The runway at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport has been repeatedly criticised for its short length, and two planes slipped off it in rainy weather just a day earlier, though no one was injured in either incident.The airport is ringed by heavily populated neighbourhoods.The TAM flight was landing on Congonhas’ 1 939 meter-long Runway 35, which was recently resurfaced but not grooved, which would provide better braking in rainy conditions.There were plans to regroove the surface by the end of July.Because of its short length, Congonhas is known among pilots as the ‘aircraft carrier’.They are instructed to touch down in the first 305 metres feet of runway, or do a go-around if they overshoot the immediate landing zone.Eyewitness Elias Rodrigues Jesus, a TAM worker, told The Associated Press he was walking near the site when he saw the jet explode in between a gas station and a Tam building.Nampa-APYesterday, the airline raised the number of people aboard the plane by four to 180 and officials said the chance of finding survivors was near zero.A Sao Paulo public safety official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy said 15 bodies had been recovered from the ground.President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national mourning following Brazil’s second major air disaster in less than a year.In September, a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing 737 and an executive jet collided over the Amazon rain forest, killing 154 people in what had been the deadliest air disaster to date.Emergency workers had recovered 56 bodies from wreckage of the TAM airliner by early yesterday as well as the TAM airlines Airbus-320’s ‘black box’ flight data recorder, according to the Website of O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.Presidential spokesman Marcelo Baumbach said no cause would be immediately released because it was premature to do so.The runway at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport has been repeatedly criticised for its short length, and two planes slipped off it in rainy weather just a day earlier, though no one was injured in either incident.The airport is ringed by heavily populated neighbourhoods.The TAM flight was landing on Congonhas’ 1 939 meter-long Runway 35, which was recently resurfaced but not grooved, which would provide better braking in rainy conditions.There were plans to regroove the surface by the end of July.Because of its short length, Congonhas is known among pilots as the ‘aircraft carrier’.They are instructed to touch down in the first 305 metres feet of runway, or do a go-around if they overshoot the immediate landing zone.Eyewitness Elias Rodrigues Jesus, a TAM worker, told The Associated Press he was walking near the site when he saw the jet explode in between a gas station and a Tam building.Nampa-AP