Bloomberg News, "Brazil Aviation Experts Sounded Alarm Before TAM Airlines July 2007 Crash"

          Brazilian pilots, lawmakers, judges and air traffic controllers raised alarms for almost a year that Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport, Latin America's busiest for domestic flights, was unsafe. Warnings of an imminent crash because of a short runway, slick conditions and overuse were repeated with growing urgency before a TAM SA Airbus A320 veered off the main runway, crossed a highway and slammed into a cargo handling facility on July 17 killing at least 190 people.
          "It was foreseeable that something was going to happen because some planes are just too big to land on a short runway like Congonhas," said George William Cesar de Araripe Sucupira, head of the Private Pilots and Aircraft Owners Association and a pilot for 50 years. The TAM disaster caps a year of growing chaos in Brazil's aviation system caused by labor unrest, equipment failures and surging demand. The government's ability to manage Latin America's largest air travel network is under attack by critics who point to a spate of fatal accidents since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office.
          The danger at Congonhas became a national concern in February when a judge, citing short runways, a decaying tarmac and slippery conditions during the city's frequent rains, barred the Boeing 737 and Fokker 100, the workhorses of Brazil's inter- city service.

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