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F***! A plane crashed into a building/gas depot/hell knows!
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| Lira |
| quote: | 'Many dead' in Brazil plane crash
Scores of people are feared dead after a passenger plane carrying 176 people crashed at Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil, starting a major fire.
The state governor said the chances of finding survivors were "practically nil", while a fire official said more may have been killed on the ground.
The TAM airlines Airbus A320 is thought to have slid off the end of the runway as it landed in very wet conditions.
Concerns had been raised about the safety of the runway during heavy rain.
There had been persistent, heavy rain in the two hours preceding the accident.
On Monday afternoon, a smaller plane skidded off the runway onto the nearby grass in similar conditions.
Major fire
TAM Express flight 3054 was carrying 170 passengers and six crew when it attempted to land at Congonhas airport in the heart of Sao Paulo.
The plane was travelling to the city from Porto Alegre in the south of the country.
All of a sudden I heard a loud explosion, and the ground beneath my feet shook
Elias Rodrigues Jesus
TAM employee
After touching down on the airport's main runway at 1850 (2150 GMT), the passenger jet skidded before sliding across a busy road in a residential area.
It then struck a depot used by TAM for storing cargo and some fuel.
Brazilian television has been showing pictures of a major fire at the scene and the emergency services have arrived in large numbers to deal with the aftermath of the accident.
An eyewitness, TAM employee Elias Rodrigues Jesus, said the plane had 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.
"I looked up and I saw a huge ball of fire, and then I smelled the stench of kerosene and sulphur."
Safety concerns
The BBC's Gary Duffy in Sao Paolo says the weather has been bad for much of the day and there has been concern for some time about safety at Congonhas during heavy rain.
In February, a judge briefly banned flights in and out of the airport, which is the busiest in Brazil.
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.
However, a much smaller plane skidded off the runway before stopping on grass in similar weather conditions on Monday. No-one was injured in the incident.
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, our correspondent says.
Some 154 people died in that incident, which was the worst air crash in the country's history. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6903837.stm
| quote: | Fiery plane crash at Sao Paulo airport kills at least 200
* Story Highlights
* NEW: 200 dead at scene, fire department says
* NEW: Airline reports 176 people aboard crashed plane
* Airliner slides across busy road, strikes building, starts fire
* Small airport is within densely populated area of city
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) -- Heavy black smoke poured into the air and bright orange flames lit the night sky in Sao Paulo after a passenger plane skidded across a road and crashed into a building Tuesday. At least 200 people were killed.
A TAM Airlines Airbus 320 carrying 176 people crashed while attempting to land in heavy rain at Sao Paulo's Congonhas Airport, the airline said.
The Sao Paulo fire department said at least 200 people, including some on the ground, were dead at the scene.
There was no immediate word on survivors.
Witnesses said the plane skidded across a major road at rush hour. Reports that the plane struck a gas station could not be confirmed, but a massive fire broke out.
The plane apparently struck a building bearing the airline's logo at the small domestic airport in the heart of the city. At least 50 rescue vehicles were at the scene, firefighters said. The fire continued to burn into the night.
Paulo Barros told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that he was getting ready to board a flight to Brasilia on another runway when the plane crashed.
"We saw the plane go straight down the runway. It didn't manage to stop and went into the avenue. It went by so fast that we thought it was taking off," Barros said.
Flight JJ3054 was coming to Sao Paulo from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, the airline said. VideoWatch scene after plane crashes in Sao Paulo »
The airport is notorious for having short, slippery runways, CNN's Miles O'Brien reported. The runway was recently resurfaced but the cutting of grooves to channel rainwater off the pavement had not been completed, he said.
A Brazilian court in February banned large jets at the busy airport because of safety concerns, The Associated Press reported.
But an appeals court overruled the ban, saying it would hurt business and that the safety problems did not warrant halting air traffic, according to AP.
The airline said it could not immediately confirm the extent of the damage or the number of victims. Family members of those on the plane were being given assistance, it said.
"I was surprised by a ball of fire in front of my window," Deisy Oliveira, who lives by the airport, told O Globo.
"The atmosphere is tense and nervous, because nobody really knows what happened. Since the plane hit the building and a gas station, you can't tell exactly where the explosion happened."
The airport's main runway was closed for several weeks at one point while it was repaired because of a problem with water collecting on the runway, Tom Hennigan, a reporter from The Times of London in Sao Paulo, told CNN. It was too early, however, to say whether that may have contributed to Tuesday's incident, he said.
The airport is small and in a densely populated area, he said.
"When you fly into Congonhas airport, it is like you are literally flying past people's living rooms in apartment blocks," Hennigan said. "Then you land on the runway. It is completely surrounded by the central part of Sao Paulo city. This is not an airport out on the edge of the city. This is right in the city."
According to AP, Brazil's deadliest crash before Tuesday occurred last September when a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing 737 collided with an executive jet over the Amazon rainforest, killing 154 people. The executive jet landed safely. |
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/ameri...rash/index.html
[quote]
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More pictures:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/eve...IxUUb47X4m9IxIF
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Bloody hell! My parents were in that airport yesterday... when my girlfriend told me about it, we both thought it "was nothing" - we had no idea of how dantesque the scenario was :( |
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| Theresa |
Your parents are ok though... right?
This is going to make work suck for me tomorrow :( *travel agent* |
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| jfk-pilot |
| Oh , that fookin sucks a lot. Reminds me of that one accident that occured a couple years back at Chicago Midway, when a SouthWest 737 slid of the runway and into the traffic and killed a little boy. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Theresa
Your parents are ok though... right? |
Yes, they're fine. Still, had it happened yesterday... well... :(
It seems they're going to close that airport down though, Theresa. This is not the first accident to have happened there, but this is sure the worst. |
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| Theresa |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Yes, they're fine. Still, had it happened yesterday... well... :(
It seems they're going to close that airport down though, Theresa. This is not the first accident to have happened there, but this is sure the worst. |
Yea... work is going to be for me in the next couple of days.
When people get word of planes crashing, people go nuts canceling and stuff.
TG I have F off!!! |
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| jonSun |
This is bad news. :(
| quote: | Originally posted by jfk-pilot
Oh , that fookin sucks a lot. Reminds me of that one accident that occured a couple years back at Chicago Midway, when a SouthWest 737 slid of the runway and into the traffic and killed a little boy. |
My buddy saw that crash while sitting at a red light at the intersection right there. He said it was the most ed up shocking thing he has ever seen. |
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| tubularbills |
| quote: | Originally posted by jfk-pilot
Oh , that fookin sucks a lot. Reminds me of that one accident that occured a couple years back at Chicago Midway, when a SouthWest 737 slid of the runway and into the traffic and killed a little boy. |
yeah, i remember that. |
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