New York Times, "TAM
Airlines Plane Crashes in Brazil; 176 Feared Dead"
An
Airbus 320 with 176 people on board skidded off a runway
while landing Tuesday night at the main airport in São
Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, and crashed into
an office building and a gas station across a highway,
setting off a conflagration that took firefighters more
than six hours to bring under control. The governor of
the state of São Paulo, José Serra, who
was at the scene, said that the chances of passengers
and the crew having survived the crash and ensuing explosion
that broke the airplane into at least two pieces were
almost zero, according to the Web site of the local newspaper,
Folha de São Paulo.
Brazilian cable television
showed firemen carrying body bags away from the site, and Mr. Serra said there
were also fatalities on the ground. The flight, number JJ 3054 operated by the
privately-owned TAM Airlines, was arriving from the southern city of Porto Alegre
when the accident occurred just before 7 p.m. If Mr. Serra’s assessment
proves true, the crash would be the worst in Brazilian history. Just after midnight,
state police officials told reporters that 40 people were confirmed dead, but
added that it could not yet be determined whether those victims were passengers
on the plane, pedestrians on the street, employees in the building or motorists
on the highway just past the raised runway. The building and gas station sit
across the highway from the airport. Initial reports indicated the plane flew
over the road before crashing.
Civil aviation in
Brazil has been in crisis since last September, when the nation’s worst
airline disaster, a collision over the Amazon between a passenger plane and a
business jet, took place. Since that disaster, in which 154 people were killed,
Brazil, Latin America’s most populous country, has been racked by waves
of canceled flights, air controller strikes and go-slow actions, struggles between
military and civilian officials for control of the government’s aviation
regulatory agencies and disclosures that the national radar system is deficient.
