At least seven dead in Brazil plane crash
An executive jet crashed in a heavily populated neighbourhood of Sao Paulo today, killing at least seven people and leaving a pile of smoky rubble just months after the city suffered the nation’s deadliest air disaster.
The plane, a Learjet 35 belonging to a Brazilian air taxi company, slammed into at least two houses shortly after taking off, airport authority Infraero spokeswoman Lucia Ferreira said.
Three people injured in the crash – including a child – were taken to hospital for treatment, a firefighter identified as Col. Paiol told Record TV. Authorities did not immediately say how many people were aboard the jet, or how many of the dead were in the plane or on the ground.
Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash, but Ferreira said there were no immediate indications that it was related to a series of Brazilian air traffic chaos and woes including the July 17 crash of a Tam Linhas Aereas SA jetliner, which slammed into a building in Sao Paulo, killing 199 people.
That crash happened at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport, widely criticised for having a short runway that makes landing tricky during rainy conditions. Some say the airport is a threat to the surrounding area, which was rural decades ago when Congonhas was built but is now home to hundreds of thousands of Brazilians.
The jet that crashed this afternoon took off from the Campo de Marte airport, used by executive jets and helicopters. It was owned by Reali Taxi Aereo and was en route to Rio de Janeiro, Ferreira said.
Witnesses told Brazilian media the plane ploughed nose first into the blue-collar neighbourhood as it apparently tried to return to the airport during cloudy and slightly rainy conditions. One home was destroyed and another was heavily damaged. At least 60 firefighters were still combing through the debris hours later.
Reali’s website said the company specialises in transporting medical patients and organs for transplant. The company’s phone number did not appear to be working today, and an e-mail message seeking comment was not immediately returned.
Brazil’s fast-growing air industry has been plagued by problems of late: July’s disaster; a September 2006 crash that killed 154 people in the Amazon jungle; and a series of air traffic woes, including radar outages and controller strikes and work slowdowns.
The chaos led President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to fire his defense minister in charge of civil aviation. The new aviation chief, Nelson Jobim, has promised to give passenger safety priority over comfort in his push to repair the nation’s air industry.
