Bloomberg News, "Brazil
Aviation Experts Sounded Alarm Before TAM Airlines
July 2007 Crash"
Brazilian
pilots, lawmakers, judges and air traffic controllers
raised alarms for almost a year that Sao Paulo's Congonhas
airport, Latin America's busiest for domestic flights,
was unsafe. Warnings of an imminent crash because of
a short runway, slick conditions and overuse were repeated
with growing urgency before a TAM SA Airbus A320 veered
off the main runway, crossed a highway and slammed into
a cargo handling facility on July 17 killing at least
190 people.
"It was foreseeable
that something was going to happen because some planes are just too big to land
on a short runway like Congonhas," said George William Cesar de Araripe
Sucupira, head of the Private Pilots and Aircraft Owners Association and a pilot
for 50 years. The TAM disaster caps a year of growing chaos in Brazil's aviation
system caused by labor unrest, equipment failures and surging demand. The government's
ability to manage Latin America's largest air travel network is under attack
by critics who point to a spate of fatal accidents since President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva took office.
The danger at Congonhas
became a national concern in February when a judge, citing short runways, a decaying
tarmac and slippery conditions during the city's frequent rains, barred the Boeing
737 and Fokker 100, the workhorses of Brazil's inter- city service.
