About 50 bodies found at Brazil plane crash site

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Searchers have found about 50 bodies scattered around the Amazon site of Brazil's worst airplane crash and were keeping wild animals away from the corpses, air force officials said today.

Two US pilots were being questioned in an investigation to find out how their smaller jet collided with a passenger plane. The executive jet landed safely but all 155 people on Boeing 737-800, owned by low-cost Brazilian airline Gol, died in Saturday's crash.

"Parts of the plane and many bodies are scattered over an area of some 20 square kilometers in the forest and searchers have to scare away wild animals, especially at night, by burning large fires," an air force spokesman said.

He said the remains of about 50 bodies have been collected, including those of the two pilots.

Grieving relatives were asked to provide dental records or descriptions that could help identify the bodies, as well as blood samples for DNA tests.

Authorities began sending recovered remains to Brasilia for identification today.

Two US pilots of a Legacy executive jet that authorities believe clipped the Boeing arrived in Rio de Janeiro from the Amazon for medical and psychological tests at the Aerospace Medical Center as part of the investigation. They cannot leave Brazil while the probe is on.

The ExcelAire Embraer Legacy 600 jet landed at a military base in the jungle at Cachimbo, after losing a winglet in a collision. None of the seven people on board were hurt.

Air Force commander Luiz Carlos Bueno said yesterday the two planes were flying at 37,000 feet, which means that one of them had abandoned its flight plan.

Investigators want to know why modern collision avoidance equipment installed on both planes didn't prevent the accident, local aviation authorities said.

The black box from the Boeing will probably be taken to the United States for analysis, after which it will be compared with the data from the Brazil-made Legacy jet, Bueno said.

Authorities said they found a damaged cockpit voice recorder but are still looking for the data unit.

As it often does, the US National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to Brazil to help with the probe.

- REUTERS