New York Times, "TAM Airlines Plane Crashes in Brazil; 176 Feared Dead"

          An Airbus 320 with 176 people on board skidded off a runway while landing Tuesday night at the main airport in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, and crashed into an office building and a gas station across a highway, setting off a conflagration that took firefighters more than six hours to bring under control. The governor of the state of São Paulo, José Serra, who was at the scene, said that the chances of passengers and the crew having survived the crash and ensuing explosion that broke the airplane into at least two pieces were almost zero, according to the Web site of the local newspaper, Folha de São Paulo.
          Brazilian cable television showed firemen carrying body bags away from the site, and Mr. Serra said there were also fatalities on the ground. The flight, number JJ 3054 operated by the privately-owned TAM Airlines, was arriving from the southern city of Porto Alegre when the accident occurred just before 7 p.m. If Mr. Serra’s assessment proves true, the crash would be the worst in Brazilian history. Just after midnight, state police officials told reporters that 40 people were confirmed dead, but added that it could not yet be determined whether those victims were passengers on the plane, pedestrians on the street, employees in the building or motorists on the highway just past the raised runway. The building and gas station sit across the highway from the airport. Initial reports indicated the plane flew over the road before crashing.
          Civil aviation in Brazil has been in crisis since last September, when the nation’s worst airline disaster, a collision over the Amazon between a passenger plane and a business jet, took place. Since that disaster, in which 154 people were killed, Brazil, Latin America’s most populous country, has been racked by waves of canceled flights, air controller strikes and go-slow actions, struggles between military and civilian officials for control of the government’s aviation regulatory agencies and disclosures that the national radar system is deficient.

Learn more about the TAM Airlines July 2007 runway crash and the rights of families of victims of the crash.