Brazilian prosecutors call for the immediate closure of Sao Paulo’s airport today after the country’s worst air disaster in its history.
Governor Jose Serra declared that the volume of air traffic at Congonhas must to be drastically. A plane belonging to Brazil’s TAM airlinehit a nearby warehouse and exploded, killing 186 people on board and three on the ground.
Footage shows Flight 3054 accelerating as it hit the short runway. Authorities believe the pilot tried to abort his landing and take off again.
Rescue workers suspended the search for victims when the building at the crash scene threatened collapse. 4 Europeans, three from France and one from Portugal, were on board.
Pilots are instructed to touch down within the first 1,000ft (300m), or pull up and circle round again. Yesterday, another TAM airline jet was rerouted after coming in at an unsafe angle.
The official statement is that it is necessary to temporarily paralyze the activities at the Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo until a complete renovation of both of its runways can be completed and there is certainty that they are fully secure for full operations.
The senate leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSDB), Arthur Virgilio – whose colleague, the opposition leader Julio Redecker, was killed in the crash – said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, needed to “act, not to talk…Otherwise his term will be marked by the suffering and pain of so many Brazilians who could still be alive.”
Hong Kong Express Airways flight UO-1845 had to return for an emergency landing in Osaka, Japan, on April 15th.
