Plane carrying 170 crashes in São Paulo

Plane carrying 170 crashes in São Paulo

www.msnbc.msn.com

SÃO PAULO - A passenger plane carrying 170 people crashed into a filling station at São Paulo's Congonhas airport Tuesday after failing to brake in time upon landing, a spokesman for Brazil's airport authority said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Story is breaking, and will be updated.

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Another source...

SAO PAULO, Brazil — A plane carrying at least 150 people crashed into a gas station after landing at Sao Paulo's airport Tuesday, Brazil's airport authority said.

The TAM airline's Airbus-320 skidded off the road and crashed into the gas station outside Congonhas airport, said Jose Leonardi Mota, a spokesman with airport authority Infraero.

www.foxnews.com...

It appears to be an unfortunate accident, and not terror related.

Its and Air bus 320,

Brazilain based airline Tam,

Thought to be carrying 150 +

The plane belonged to Brazil's Tam airline, and there was no word yet on potential casualties, said TV Globo.

The airplane landed from Porto Alegre, to the south, skidded off the runway, which was wet from rain, and slammed into a gas station outside the airport perimeter, witnesses said.

The airport was immediately closed to air traffic and flights are being diverted to other airports serving the Sao Paulo area, local media said.

www.iol.co.za...


[edit on 17-7-2007 by asala]

Into a gas station? Ouch that has got to be bad. I hope it dident explode and they will be able to rescue people from the plane

Another Airbus down, those things must be deathtraps!

Apparently the fire fed by the gas station is really intense, I feel sorry for the passengers.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Another Airbus down, those things must be deathtraps!

Apparently the fire fed by the gas station is really intense, I feel sorry for the passengers.

Bit of a biased opinion there, dj?

Just checking now, but on a cursory glance, it would appear that Airbuses crash less frequently than Boeing's. The top "unsafe" planes appear to be Russian in origin, mind you...

Apparently the airplane could not stop on the runway and hit a warehouse from the same company, TAM, and a petrol station near it.

The building was expected to collapse at any moment.

Live video (with Portuguese audio) here.

Edit: at least 7 people were taken to two different hospitals, 2 of these people are injured with less gravity but the other 5 all have grave injuries.

[edit on 17/7/2007 by ArMaP]

The runway was slippery because of the heavy rain.

There were 176 people on board, at least 155 passengers.

It did hit the gas station and there was an explosion. 10 bodies already found and 8 injured, all the injured were working in the dep. or the gas station.


[edit on 17-7-2007 by Sleps]

As bad as it can get...

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.

www.cnn.com...

An investigation is certainly forthcoming, but it looks like pilot error to me so far.

Originally posted by Mirthful Me
An investigation is certainly forthcoming, but it looks like pilot error to me so far.

Originally posted by Sleps
The runway was slippery because of the heavy rain.

The runway was indeed slippery. In fact, from what my wife tells me (She's from Sao Paulo). The runway was incomplete and didn't have anything for the water to drain into. The runway had been under repair and the people responsible for it wanted to rush and open it as soon as possible. Probably so that they could handle more incoming/outgoing aircraft which I guess equals more money.

So no, I don't believe it's pilot error Mirthful Me (or anything to do with it being an Airbus like some one suggested). Seems more like a bone headed business management error in my opinion.

I have no supporting links for my information, so maybe best not to take my post as factual until more develops.

EDIT to add:

Apparently a least a few other planes have slid off the same runway recently as well, but not nearly as bad obviously. One had slid off into the grass on the side of the runway. Again, no links, just what I've heard from people I know down there.

[edit on 18-7-2007 by jra]

From the BBC:

On Monday afternoon, 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.

news.bbc.co.uk...
.

So, a plane skidded off the runway the day before, yet they kept it open in terrible conditions? Sounds like there will be some criminal proceedings.

[edit on 18/7/07 by stumason]

A terrible terrible accident, I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but looking at the photo's of the scene, I have to wonder why a fuel depot was placed at the END of the runway. Now wondering how many other airports have fuel depots that close to the end of a runway.

If reports are true and this runway is substandard, then calling it an "accident" is a misnomer, as that implies nothing could have been done and no one was at fault.

Also, the fuel depot is on the other side of a major road at the end of a runway, so really "at the end" but rather, just in line with the runway, but some way off.

[edit on 18/7/07 by stumason]

Yer the petrol station was after the runway lights , one row of shops/houses a busy dual carriageway . surely the weight of the plane and the speed it would be travelling on approach (170/80 mph?) makes that distance a little smaller? either way it made the distance .

[edit on 18-7-2007 by mrbenn]

news.bbc.co.uk...


theres a video link in the top right corner , showing the fire .

Well it would have been very quick... I saw it on the news... big fireball.

Another sad tragedy, let's hope this time the authorities do something about this.
Just correcting some sources here, it did hit the gas station but not much, just ripped off the ceiling. What really caused the explosion was the crash @ TAM's building.
People are talking about 200 deaths this time, probably the worst plane crash in Brazil's history.

TAM, the owner of the plane and of the building that was hit by the plane, as published a list of all the people that were on the plane: 162 passengers, 18 workers of the company and 6 airplane personnel, making a total of 186 people.

The first victim to be identified was a worker that was making a delivery on the building when it was hit by the plane, and many of the victims were people on the ground.

I saw on TV today a eye-witness that was on a taxi traveling through the avenue that the plane crossed and she said that the front of the taxi was hit by the front wheels of the plane.

I have seen most of this informations on this web site, in Portuguese.

So, somewhere around 150 people died because of a crappy runway...nice. Who's up for a tourism boycott of Brazil?