Crash site of passenger jet found in Amazon

Relatives of passengers of the crashed Gol airlines flight from Manaus to Brasilia weep while awaiting news from the company and aviation authorities. Picture / Reuters

BRASILIA, Brazil - Airborne searchers today found the wreckage of a Brazilian passenger plane that crashed a day earlier in Amazon jungle with 155 people on board and the chances of anyone surviving were slight, officials said.

The brand-new Boeing 737-800 operated by Brazilian low-cost carrier Gol probably plunged into the ground nose first after colliding with a smaller plane, the head of Brazil's airport authority Infraero said.

"All rational logic shows there is a high probability that a collision occurred," Infraero head Brigadier Jose Carlos Pereira told reporters.

The small size of the wreckage area indicated that the chances of survivors among the 149 passengers and six crew members on board were slim.

"Imagine the velocity at which it hit the ground coming from an altitude of 11,000 metres," Pereira told reporters.

Authorities lost radar contact with Gol flight 1907 on Friday afternoon during its journey from the principal Amazon city of Manaus to the capital Brasilia, the airline said.

Search planes found the crash site in Mato Grosso state, about 1,000km northwest of Brasilia in a dense jungle that was difficult to reach, officials said.

The crash site on vast farm could only be reached by helicopter. Soldiers in the rescue teams had to drop by rope to the ground.

"There is no way to get into the Amazon jungle by land," Pereira said.

Friends and relatives, many wearing dark sunglasses, hugging and crying, gathered in the patio of a hotel in Brasilia waiting for details. Most could not utter more than one word before bursting into tears.

Robson Barreto was waiting for news on his 29-year-old nephew Rafael who was on the plane.

"Gol ... would not say if there might be any survivors," he said.

Denise Abreu, director of civil aviation authority ANAC, said signs indicated there had been a mid-air collision with a smaller jet, which landed safely.

Embraer aircraft manufacturer said one of its executive jets, a Legacy 600 owned and operated by a client, had been involved in a collision.

The jet made an emergency landing at Cachimbo air force base with five passengers on board, Embraer said. No injuries were reported.

The Gol plane had been received new from Boeing on September 12 and had only 200 flight hours, the company said.

Manaus is host to a number of foreign-owned manufacturing plants making motorcycles, computers and other goods in its duty free zone. It is also a base for tourism in the Amazon, the world's largest rain forest, and a headquarters for several environmental groups.

Gol has expanded rapidly since its founding in 2001 to become Brazil's No. 2 airline and to offer flights to neighbouring countries.

With its orange and white colours and stylised casual uniforms based on US no-frills carriers, it is an instantly recognisable brand in Brazil and one of its most successful new businesses.

In the last major airline crash in Brazil, 33 people were killed when a plane belonging to regional carrier Rico Linhas Aereas crashed in the Amazon flying from Sao Paulo de Olivenca to Manaus on May 14, 2004.

- REUTERS