BRAZIL: Passenger plane with 155 people on board crashes over the Amazon jungle

A Brazilian passenger plane with 155 people on board disappeared over the Amazon jungle and was believed to have crashed on Friday (September 29, 2006), local officials and news reports said as Air Force aircraft searched to find the wreckage on Saturday (September 30). The brand-new Boeing 737-800 operated by Brazilian low-cost carrier Gol disappeared Friday afternoon after what could have been a mid-air collision. It lost radar contact during a flight from the principal Amazon city of Manaus to the national capital, Brasilia, the company said. Brazil's Embraer , the world's fourth largest aircraft manufacturer, said in a statement one of its Legacy 600 executive jets owned and operated by a client had collided with the Gol 1907 flight. No injuries were reported on the Legacy, Embraer added. The head of Brazil's airports authority, Infraero, could not confirm this. He also said thermal sensors have so far found no sign of an explosion on the surface. Defence Minister Waldir Pires told Band TV the smaller Embraer Legacy with five passengers made an emergency landing at the Cachimbo air force base. At airports, friends and relatives, many weeping, anxiously awaited news. "We hope for the best. We already knew that she was actually on the plane (a relative) and we are just waiting," said an unidentified relative of passenger on missing GOL plane. "The lack of information is absurd, it's heartbreaking. We are desperate families, we have our brother there, father of four, 40-years old, this is heartbreaking," declared another unidentified relative. The mayor of a remote town in the central state of Mato Grosso said the plane had crashed on Jarina farm in Peixoto de Azevedo municipality, but the farm's manager later told Reuters employees of a nearby farm only saw a big plane on Friday evening flying low and then lost it from sight. Five Brazilian air force jets were searching for the missing plane through the night and three helicopters joined them in the morning on Saturday, Infraero said. Gol said Flight 1907 was carrying 149 passengers and six crew members. The plane had been received new from Boeing on Sept. 12 and had only 200 flight hours, the company said. Brazil's civil aviation authority said the plane lost contact around the town of Sao Felix do Xingu. The flight left Manaus at 2:36 p.m. (1836 GMT). Gol is a low-cost carrier that has expanded rapidly since its founding in 2001 to become Brazil's No. 2 airline and to offer flights to neighboring countries. "It's the company (GOL) that definitely reignited the Brazilian aviation industry. It experimented an amazing growth in 5 years, going from zero to 53 airplanes. That market conquest is remarkable and unprecedented in aviation history," said aviation and plane crash expert Gianfranco Bettig. With its orange and white colors and stylized casual uniforms based on U.S. no-frills carriers, it is an instantly recognizable brand in Brazil and one of its most successful new businesses. Manaus is host to a number of foreign-owned manufacturing plants making motorcycles, computers and other goods in its duty free zone. It is also a base for tourism in the Amazon, the world's largest rain forest, and a headquarters for several environmental groups. In the last major airline crash in Brazil, 33 people were killed when a plane belonging to regional carrier Rico Linhas Aereas crashed in the Amazon flying from Sao Paulo de Olivenca to Manaus on May 14, 2004.

ITN Source | September 30, 2006

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