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Air traffic resumes at Congonhas

Planes resumed landing and taking off at the main runway of Congonhas, Brazil's busiest airport, 10 days after a TAM airlines jet crashed there and killed 199 people in the country's worst aviation disaster.

A TAM plane was the first to touch down on the 1,939m main runway on Friday, but the airline has imposed restrictions since the crash and says it will not use Congonhas Airport when it is raining.

Traffic at Congonhas had been restricted to a 1,436m backup since the crash, while investigators tried to determine if the main runway's condition played a role in the accident. Both runways are relatively short by modern standards.

TAM Flight 3054, an Airbus A320, landed in driving rain on July 17 and sped down the runway before crashing into a gas station and an air cargo building at 175kph.

The accident created more chaos in Brazil's already-troubled air travel industry, led to the ouster of the defense minister and prompted a safety advisory from Airbus, though authorities have not yet publicized what they have learned from the plane's data recorders.

Airbus spokeswoman Barbara Kracht would not specify the nature of the information from the data recorder and said on Thursday that the advisory did not imply any conclusion about the causes of the crash. She said the notification to airlines stressed the need for pilots to follow proper landing procedures.

A pilot for a major international airline with a fleet of A320s said on Friday that his company had reminded pilots to pull the thrust lever to idle during the landing flare.

Leaving the throttles even slightly open on the A320 prevents speed-cutting spoilers and the auto-braking system from activating, said the pilot, who declined to be identified because of the airline's policy.

Earlier speculation about factors in the crash have focused on a slick, short runway and a deactivated reverse thruster on the plane. TAM Linhas Aereas SA has said the thruster was turned off in keeping with proper maintenance regulations.

Over the weekend, Brazilian investigators will examine the information from the flight's data recorder and listen to a cockpit recording.

Brigadier General Jorge Kersul, who is heading the probe into the crash, said investigators would use the flight recorder data to evaluate whether the plane's throttle was in the wrong position just before it landed.

Globo TV reported that it obtained a transcript of the conversation between pilots and controllers just before the crash, and that controllers warned the pilots the runway was slick just before the jet touched down.

Someone said "turn, turn, turn" at some point in the conversation recorded in the cockpit, but Globo said it was not clear who said those words or when.

Kersul told reporters he could not confirm the report because he had not heard the recording.

New Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, appointed two days earlier by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, visited the crash site on on Friday.

Jobim says he will consider restructuring Brazil's two primary aviation authorities, amid criticism they failed to improve air infrastructure to keep up with a sharp increase in flights.

He said officials are working on a plan to divert 7 million of the 18 million passengers who fly through Congonhas each year to the international airport and Viracopos, a little-used airport with a long runway about 100km from Sao Paulo.
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