A passenger plane has crashed
and burst into flames at
Brazil's busiest airport, in
the heart of Sao Paulo,
killing up to 200 people.
Rescue crews said none of the
186 people on board the Airbus
A320 could have survived,
while more people were killed
on the ground. The TAM
airliner skidded off the
runway as it landed in w
more

A passenger plane has crashed
and burst into flames at
Brazil's busiest airport, in
the heart of Sao Paulo,
killing up to 200 people.
Rescue crews said none of the
186 people on board the Airbus
A320 could have survived,
while more people were killed
on the ground. The TAM
airliner skidded off the
runway as it landed in wet
weather, shot over a busy road
and hit a fuel depot. Concerns
had been raised about the
safety of the runway during
heavy rain. There had been
persistent, heavy downpours in
the two hours before the
accident. See where and how
crash unfolded TAM Express
flight 3054 was carrying 186
passengers and crew when it
attempted to land at Congonhas
airport, which is mainly used
for regional flights from
other parts of Brazil and
South America. All of a
sudden I heard a loud
explosion, and the ground
beneath my feet shook Elias
Rodrigues JesusTAM employeeThe
plane was travelling to Sao
Paulo, Brazil's financial
capital, from Porto Alegre in
the south of the country.
After touching down on the
main runway at 1850 (2150 GMT)
on Tuesday, the jet began to
skid and then dropped down a
steep slope at the end of the
runway. It then shot over a
major road and crashed into a
four-storey building used for
storing cargo and fuel. The
warehouse was busy with
airport workers, some of whom
had to jump out of windows.
The plane's tail could later
be seen sticking out from the
building in flames. Fires were
still burning hours after the
crash, with black smoke
trailing off into the night
sky. An eyewitness, TAM
employee Elias Rodrigues
Jesus, said the plane exploded
after slamming into the depot.
'All of a sudden I heard a
loud explosion, and the ground
beneath my feet shook,' he
told the Associated Press news
agency. 'I looked up and I saw
a huge ball of fire, and then
I smelled the stench of
kerosene and sulphur.' A
doctor at Sao Paulo's mortuary
said 30 badly charred bodies
had been brought in. Sao Paulo
State Governor Jose Serra
said: 'I was told that the
temperature inside the plane
was 1,000C [1,830F], so the
chances of there being any
survivors are practically
nil.' President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva declared three
days of national mourning for
the victims. Safety concerns
The weather had been bad for
much of the day and there has
been concern for some time
about safety at Congonhas
during heavy rain. On Monday,
a smaller plane skidded off
the runway onto the nearby
grass in similar conditions.
In February, a judge briefly
banned three types of large
passenger jet from using the
runway because it was too
short to accommodate them, and
because of concerns over the
airport's drainage system
Pilots had complained that
water was pooling on the
surface of the landing strip,
making braking difficult and
occasionally causing planes to
skid out of control. Remedial
work, including laying a new
surface, has been carried out
in recent months. Air safety
in Brazil has been a major
issue since a crash last year
when a passenger plane
collided with an executive jet
over the Amazon, killing some
154 people

Category Autos & Vehicles

Tags Brazil, TAM, Plane, Crash, Dead