I dreamed of an airplane coming low over the apartment building I was in. I saw it roll over upside-down and crash into the building across the way and break into millions of pieces and the debris was spread everywhere.

Crash occurred 9-28-06 - apparently two planes collided in the air. No mention has been made of the second plane or what happened to it.

Survivors unlikely in Brazilian crash

By STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - Brazilian air force pilots spotted the wreckage of a jetliner that crashed deep in the Amazon jungle, and an aviation official said Saturday it was unlikely any of the 155 people aboard had survived.

The president of Brazil's airport authority, Jose Carlos Pereira, said Gol airlines Flight 1907 was traveling at nearly 310 mph when it slammed into the ground on Friday.

"Our experience shows that when one cannot find the fuselage relatively intact and when the wreckage is concentrated in a relatively small area, the chances of finding any survivors are practically nonexistent," he said.

He said officials were investigating whether the newly purchased Boeing 737 collided with an executive jet before crashing.

If no survivors are found, it would be the deadliest air accident in Brazil's history. In 1982, a Boeing 727 operated by Brazil's now-defunct Vasp airline, crashed in the northeastern city of Fortaleza, killing 137 people.

Pereira said pilots searched for the plane through the night before finding the wreckage. He said the jungle canopy is so thick that helicopters will have to lower emergency crews by rope, then those on the ground would cut down trees to create areas large enough for the helicopters to land.

"The jungle is so dense that we're going to have to open it up," Pereira said. "It's a very complex operation, it's extremely humid there, and there are millions of mosquitoes."

The Gol flight vanished Friday on its way from Manaus, a major river city in the heart of the

Amazon rain forest to Rio de Janeiro, 1,700 miles away.

The manager of a cattle ranch near the crash site said the plane may have crashed inside the nearby Xingu Indian reservation.

"We heard a loud explosion and some of our employees saw a plane flying low," Milton Picalho, the manager of the 49,000-acre ranch, said by phone.

The cause of the crash was unclear, but Pereira said the jetliner may have either collided with a Legacy executive jet or the two aircraft may have grazed each other.

"It is impossible to confirm that there is a relation between the incident which caused the (Legacy) crew to perform an emergency landing in Cachimbo and the disappearance of the Gol airplane," federal aviation officials said in a statement early Saturday morning.

The smaller plane, which carries up to 16 passengers, was making its inaugural flight to the United States, where it had been purchased by an American company, said its manufacturer, Embraer.

It was piloted by a U.S. citizen, who had left from the airport in Sao Jose dos Campos, near Sao Paulo, said Bueno, the regional flight protection head in Sao Paulo.

The commercial flight between Manaus and Rio is popular with foreign tourists but there was no immediate word on the nationalities of those aboard.

U.S. Consular Officer Robin Busse was at the airport seeking a passenger list but did not say if any Americans had been aboard either plane.

Sergio Misaci, 47, said his brother Lazaro, 58, had been traveling to Brasilia to celebrate their mother's 80th birthday.

"I have all the hope in the world. We have to root for them and have faith in God," Misaci said.

The Gol flight vanished in the same region where a Varig 737-300 plane crashed in 1989 with 54 people aboard, 46 of whom survived.

The crash was the first major incident for Gol Linhas Aereas Intelligentes SA, an upstart Brazilian airline that took to the skies in 2001 with just six Boeing 737s in 2001.

Since then Gol has rapidly gained market share by offering low-cost tickets, modeling its service after low-cost carriers in the United States and Europe. The company is now Brazil's second-largest airline.

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Associated Press writers Tales Azzoni and Alan Clendenning, in Sao Paulo, and Vivian Sequera, in Brasilia, contributed to this report.

Dense jungle hampers Brazil plane crash rescuers
01/10/2006 - 13:03:28

Search crews were lowered by ropes from helicopters through dense jungle searched the wreckage of a Brazilian jetliner that apparently clipped an executive jet and slammed into the ground in the Amazon rain forest, probably killing all 155 people aboard.

It would be Brazil’s worst air disaster if all 149 passengers and six crew aboard Gol airlines Flight 1907 are confirmed dead. The jungle where the Boeing 737-800 went down is so dense that crews had to cut down trees yesterday to clear a space to allow helicopters to land.

“There’s little indication of survivors, but we won’t rule out the possibility,” Brazil Air Force Brig. Gen. Antonio Gomes Leite Filho said in a news conference. “We haven’t fully explored the crash scene, it's a very complicated area.”

Filho said rescue operations would continue until authorities are sure there are no survivors. The search was halted after sunset and was to resume at daybreak today.

The flight vanished on Friday while flying from the jungle city of Manaus to Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. Searchers located the wreckage yesterday.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of mourning for victims of the crash, which cast a cloud over preparations for Brazil’s presidential election tomorrow.

The president of Brazil’s airport authority, Jose Carlos Pereira, said the jetliner and an executive jet may have collided before the crash, though that was still under investigation.

Air force helicopter pilots hovering over the crash site saw no signs of an intact fuselage and the debris appeared to cover only a small area.

Pereira said the plane apparently hit the jungle floor at nearly 500 kph, adding that “at that speed it is highly unlikely any survivors will be found”.

Gol vice president David Barioni said both Brazilians and foreigners were aboard, but did not provide any breakdown.

Rescue teams reached the crash zone hours after air force helicopter pilots found the wreckage, but “so far it is impossible to confirm the existence of survivors in the area,” according to a statement by the airport authority, the air force and the Civil Aviation Agency.

If no survivors are found, it would be the worst air disaster in Brazil’s history, passing the 1982 crash of a Boeing 727 operated by the now-defunct Vasp airline in the north-eastern city of Fortaleza that killed 137 people.

The wreckage was found near the 20,000 hectare Jarina cattle ranch, 1,750km northwest of Sao Paulo in the state of Mato Grosso.

The Brazilian passenger plane which crashed with 155 people onboard was likely to have plunged into the ground nose first, the airport authority and Brazilian airline GOL said on Saturday.

It is the deadliest air crash in Brazil's history, according to The Associated Press.

The wreckage of the plane was found 30 km north of the Peixote Azevedo municipality, a remote area of Mato Grosso state with "difficult access," Brazil's Globo TV reported.

Rescue helicopters and military troops were trying to reach the densely forested crash site, said Jose Carlos Pereira, president of the airport authority Infraero.

Search intensifies for Brazilian airliner Brazilian airliner with 155 aboard missing after mid-air collision

The Boeing-737 plane disappeared from the radar screen after colliding with an executive jet in the Amazon region.

The Gol flight 1907 left the northern Manaus city in the afternoon but did not arrive in Brasilia as scheduled, Globo reported.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Sept. 4) - Two American executive jet pilots were ordered by a judge to stay in Brazil while authorities investigate whether they caused a midair collision with an airliner that crashed into the Amazon, killing all 155 people aboard.

A Brazilian newspaper reported that the pilots' Legacy jet, which was carrying seven Americans, disobeyed an order by the control tower to descend to a lower altitude just before coming into contact with Gol airlines Flight 1907.

A judge in Mato Grosso state ordered federal police to seize the passports of pilot Joseph Lepore and co-pilot Jan Palladino "as a result of the doubts surrounding the case and the emergence of indications that the accident was caused by the Legacy," Mato Grosso Justice Department press spokeswoman Maria Barbant said by telephone Tuesday.

She said the two were not arrested but "just prevented from leaving the country, at least until we know exactly what happened" in Brazil's deadliest air disaster.

The daily O Globo paper said the Legacy flew at 37,000 feet to the capital, Brasilia, but then ignored an order to descend to 36,000 feet to continue its flight to the Amazon city of Manaus. The Gol jetliner was flying at 37,000 feet from Manaus to Brasilia en route to Rio de Janeiro.

The damaged executive jet safely landed at a nearby air force base after the incident.

The pilots, who have been questioned by Mato Grosso investigators, were brought to Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday for routine physical tests. They were not injured in the incident.

The Legacy had been making its inaugural flight to the United States, where it had been purchased by an American company, said its manufacturer, Embraer.

Air force commander Gen. Luis Carlos Bueno also said the Gol flight, a brand-new Boeing 737-800, had a flight plan for 37,000 feet and the Legacy jet was authorized to fly at 36,000 feet, according to an interview Tuesday with Brazil's government news service Agencia Brasil.

He said neither plane was authorized to deviate from the plans. He said only an investigation of the planes' black boxes could clarify the cause of the accident.

Neither the air force nor the National Civil Aviation Agency would comment on the reports.

Christine Negroni, an investigator for the aviation law firm Kreindler & Kreindler of New York, said in an e-mail that under international guidelines the Legacy should not have been at an odd-numbered altitude because it was heading northwest.

"All westbound flights fly at even numbers with 1,000 feet separation. East bound flights fly at odd numbers, same 1,000 separation," she said. "Since the American pilots were flying northwest, they should not have been at 37,000 since that's odd."

Investigators began examining voice and data recorders recovered from the jetliner Tuesday, but the National Civil Aviation Agency said one of the voice recorders was missing data.

"This unit is essential for analysis," the agency said on its Web site. It said military units were searching for missing parts.

Investigators will also look at why the pilots weren't alerted by special on-board equipment designed to avoid collisions. The air force said both jets were equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS, which monitors other planes and sets off an alarm if they get too close.

The Gol plane crashed deep in the Amazon jungle in Mato Grosso state, some 1,100 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, killing all 149 passengers and six crew members.

There appeared to be only one American on the flight - Douglas Hancock, 35, of Missouri. He was in Mato Grosso for business and was returning to Rio de Janeiro where he lived, his father, Paul Hancock, told the Southeast Missourian newspaper.

Bueno said about 100 bodies were found within a half-mile of the wreckage and were flown to the coroner's office in Brasilia for identification. He said rescue workers would have to open more clearings in the dense jungle to try to recover the rest.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators, who would be joined by representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing Co.

The U.S. agencies were involved because the Gol plane was manufactured in the United States and the smaller jet was registered there.

Little chance of survivors in Brazil crash

POSTED: 2:35 p.m. EDT, September 30, 2006

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Survivors unlikely in Brazilian crash