BRAZIL: Wreckage of Brazil passenger jet spotted

Airborne searchers found the wreckage of a Brazilian passenger plane on Saturday (September 30) that crashed a day earlier in Amazon jungle with 155 people on board and the chances of anyone surviving were slight, officials said. The brand-new Boeing 737-800 operated by Brazilian low-cost carrier Gol probably plunged into the ground nose first after colliding with a smaller plane, the head of Brazil's airport authority Infraero said. The small size of the wreckage area indicated that the chances of survivors among the 149 passengers and six crew members on board were slim. Authorities lost radar contact with Gol flight 1907 on Friday (September 29) afternoon during its journey from the principal Amazon city of Manaus to the capital Brasilia. Search planes found the crash site in Mato Grosso state, about 600 miles (1,000 km) northwest of Brasilia in a dense jungle that was difficult to reach, officials said. The crash site, on vast farm, could only be reached by helicopter. Soldiers in the rescue teams had to drop by rope to the ground. Friends and relatives, hugging and crying, gathered at the Manaus airport waiting for details. Most could not utter more than one word before bursting into tears. An unidentified relative of a victim of the plane accident said he hopes for the best and that all they can do is wait. "We hope for the best. We already knew that she was actually on the plane (a relative) and we are just waiting," he said. Another unidentified relative of one of the victims seemed less contented and complained about the lack of information given by the airline. "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," he said. A specialist on aviation, Gianfranco Bettig, said that airline Gol had revived the Brazilian aviation industry, experiencing incredible growth and that its market growth had been unprecedented in aviation history. "It's the company (GOL) that definitely reignited the Brazilian aviation industry. It experience amazing growth in five years, going from zero to fifty-three aeroplanes. Such market growth is remarkable and unprecedented in aviation history," he said. Gol has expanded rapidly since its founding in 2001 to become Brazil's No. 2 airline and to offer flights to neighbouring countries. Denise Abreu, director of civil aviation authority ANAC, said signs indicated there had been a mid-air collision with a smaller jet, which landed safely. Embraer aircraft manufacturer said one of its executive jets, a Legacy 600 owned and operated by a client, had been involved in a collision. The jet made an emergency landing at Cachimbo air force base with five passengers on board and no injuries were reported. Infraero head Brigadier Jose Carlos Pereira said the rescue logistics will be very complicated due to the dense forest area where the plane has been located and that a heavy operation involving helicopters will occur. "It's a complex logistic to remove people from inside a dense forest like that one (referring to place where plane crashed)," he said. With its orange and white colours 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. Brigadier Pereira also said that at this point there are no statements from the survivors of the Legacy 600 jet which collided with the Gol Boeing and landed safely afterwards. 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.

ITN Source | October 1, 2006

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