There were no survivors among the 155 people aboard the Brazilian jetliner that collided with a smaller plane and crashed in the Amazon rain forest in the nation's worst air disaster, authorities said.
Aviation officials confirmed late on Sunday that the Boeing 737-800 and an executive jet clipped each other in midair on Friday, causing Gol airlines flight 1907 to crash in jungle so dense that crews had to cut down trees to clear a space for rescue helicopters to land. The smaller plane -- carrying Americans -- landed safely at a nearby air force base.
Denise Abreu, director of Brazil's Civil Aviation Agency, told the government news service Agencia Brasil that after analyzing the flight data recorder of the executive jet, "what we can affirm is that there was a collision."
No other details were immediately released, and authorities had not yet located recorders from the Gol plane, she said.
The Brazilian air force said in a statement that rescue workers had combed through the wreckage and found no signs that anyone could have survived the crash. Workers had recovered two bodies by Sunday night and airlifted them out by helicopter, the statement said.
Gol airlines, which operated the flight, confirmed there were no survivors in its own release.
The death toll surpassed that of Brazil's previous worst air disaster: the 1982 crash of a Boeing 727 operated by the now-defunct Vasp airline in the northeastern city of Fortaleza that killed 137 people.
Globo news agency said on Sunday that police questioned the seven passengers and crew aboard the executive jet, which had been headed to the US. The passengers, all Americans, included Joe Sharkey, a journalist for the New York Times.
The seven said they felt a bump, the plane shook and the pilot took manual control for the landing, Globo reported.
The New York Times reported that Sharkey sent an e-mail to his wife saying: "Neither of the pilots can understand how a 737 could have hit us without them seeing it."
But National Civil Aviation Agency general director Milton Zuanazzi said that at airspeeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour, that was possible.
"They said they didn't see anything. But this is absolutely normal ... In these conditions, you only a see a shadow and a noise," Zuanazzi said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not