Plane skids off runway

One week after the tragic plane accident that killed 155 people over the Brazilian Amazon, another aircraft from the same company - Gol Airlines - skidded off a runway during its landing at the Sao Paulo Congonhas airport. Despite the incident, none of the plane's 120 passengers and six crew were injured. The plane was coming from Cuiaba, and the light rain that fell in the city at the time of the accident (6am local time) may have contributed to the plane failing to land properly. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the accident.

Investigations on plane crash continue

Brazilian authorities are still trying to determine how a Boeing 737 carrying 155 people collided in mid-air with a smaller business jet plane over the Amazon on Friday, resulting on the death of all aboard the larger plane. The pilots from the Embraer Legacy, which was carrying seven people and managed to land in a military air base, are still being questioned by the police in regards to what happened at the time of the accident. Their passports are currently being held by request of the local authorities, who want to make sure they do not leave the country while the investigations are not concluded.

One of the possibilities being investigated is that the pilots from the Legacy may have turned off the plane's tracking equipment, in order to perform some tests in the handling of the new plane - which had just been acquired prior to the flight, by an American company. Without the tracking devices turned on, the plane could not be identified by the Boeing's own equipment, leading both planes to keep the collision course without taking any measures to avoid the crash until visual contact had been established.

Meanwhile, a New York Times reporter which was aboard the Legacy has returned to the US, and wrote his take on the accident for the newspaper. The article can be read by clicking here (external link to the newspaper's website).

Presidential election goes to run-off

Brazilian president's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva biggest fears came to reality Sunday night, when he failed to get the majority of votes in the presidential election and had to settle for a run-off with second place Geraldo Alckmin. Lula, who had been heavily favored to win a second term in Sunday's election, managed to get 48.6 percent of the valid votes, against 41.5 percent from Alckmin. To avoid a run-off, a candidate needs one vote more than 50 percent of the valid votes. The president seemed to lose votes in the two weeks prior to Sunday, after it was revealed his party tried to buy illegal documents to use against their political opponents. These documents allegedly showed these opponents involved in several wrongdoings, but the allegations were never proved and the plan backfired.

Early polls suggest that both Lula and Alckmin would have close to 50 percent of the votes in the run-off, scheduled for October 29. Fearing a defeat, president Lula has already called his top aides for a series of meetings on Monday, to decide whether to change the focus of his campaign.

Rescue of bodies from plane crash should take a week

The Brazilian authorities confirmed that all 155 people aboard the commercial plane that crashed on Friday in the Amazon forest have died in the accident. The rescue operation to retrieve the bodies from the crash scene should take a week, due to the difficult access to the area where the plane fell. On Friday, a Gol Airlines flight from Manaus to Brasilia crashed after reportedly being hit by a smaller plane near the border between the states of Para and Mato Grosso, in northern Brazil. The plane, a Boeing 737-800, was found on Saturday, when the first members of the Brazilian Army arrived on the remote location of the crash.

The smaller plane, an Embraer Legacy, was carrying American businessmen and Brazilian employees of the aircraft maker Embraer. The jet had just been purchased in Sao Paulo and was being flown to the United States. Despite suffering some damage to the wing in the crash, the Legacy was able to safely land in a nearby airbase. The American pilots said they did not see the Boeing, just a shadow, and heard a loud bump. Authorities are still trying to determine why the two planes were allowed to fly so close to each other, leading to the accident.