A plane crashed and burst into flames after skidding off a runway at Sao Paulo's airport that had been criticized as being too short.

 

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at the site where a TAM airlines commercial jet crashed in Sao Paulo, Tuesday, July 17, 2007. [AP]

 

Rescue crews said none of the 176 people on board the Airbus A320 were likely to have survived, according to Sao Paulo state Gov. Jose Serra. Brazilian news agency Folha quoted the leader of a rescue crew as saying there could be 200 people dead, including casualties on the ground.

 

The Tam airline's Airbus-320 slid off the runway at Congonhas airport in a driving rain, then crossed a busy road at the height of rush hour in South America's largest city before slamming into a gas station, said Jose Leonardi Mota, a spokesman with airport authority Infraero.

 

A witness said he saw one charred body as flames shot into the sky and clouds of black smoke billowed into the air after the crash.

 

"I was told that the temperature inside the plane was 1,000 degrees (Celsius), so the chances of there being any survivors are practically nil," Sao Paulo State Gov. Jose Serra told reporters at the airport. The temperature in Celsius translates to about 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Tam worker Elias Rodrigues Jesus, walking near the site just as the crash happened, told The Associated Press that the jet exploded in between the gas station and a warehouse owned by Tam.

 

"All of a sudden I heard a loud explosion, and the ground beneath my feet shook," Jesus said. "I looked up and I saw a huge ball of fire, and then I smelled the stench of kerosene and sulfur."

 

Jesus said he saw one charred body, and Globo TV reported that at least seven people were being treated for injuries, some of whom were Tam workers who were in building.

 

Tam Linhas Aereas flight 3054 was en route to Sao Paulo from the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre with 170 passengers six crew members, Tam said in a statement.

 

"At this moment, we cannot determine the extent of possible injuries suffered by the airplanes occupants and crew members," the airline said in a statement.

 

Distraught relatives of passengers crowded Tam's check-in counters in Porto Alegre, complaining hours after the crash that the airline had not yet released a passenger list, Globo TV reported.

 

The accident happened during heavy rains, and critics have said for years that such an accident was possible at the airport because its runway is too short for large planes landing in rainy weather.

 

A federal court in February briefly banned takeoffs and landings of large jets at the airport because of safety concerns at the airport, which handles huge volumes of flights for the massive domestic Brazilian air travel market.

 

But an appeals court overruled the ban, saying it was too harsh because it would have severe economic ramifications and that there were not enough safety concerns to prevent the planes from landing and taking off the airport.

 

Tuesday's crash came 10 months after Brazil's deadliest crash, a September collision between a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing 737 and an executive jet over the Amazon rainforest.

 

All 154 people on the Gol jet died. The executive jet landed safely.

 

The crash highlighted Brazil's increasing aviation woes, as a surge in travelers overwhelms underfunded air traffic control systems. A Brazilian judge indicted four flight controllers and the smaller jet's two US pilots on the equivalent of manslaughter charges, but the defendants point to other problems - from holes in radar coverage to the inability of some Brazilian controllers to clearly speak English, the language of international aviation.

 

Controllers - concerned about being made scapegoats - have engaged in strikes and work slowdowns to raise safety concerns, causing or exacerbating lengthy delays and cancelations.

 

Angry travelers have stormed airline check-in counters and runways in Brazil, and fistfights have broken out in waiting areas.

 

(China Daily via AP/Reuters July 18, 2007)