SAO PAULO, Brazil – A radar failure over the Amazon forced Brazil to turn back or ground a string of international flights Saturday, deepening a national aviation crisis just hours after the president unveiled safety measures prompted by the country’s deadliest air disaster.
The radar outage from midnight to 2:30 a.m., which Brazilian media said was apparently caused by an electrical problem, forced numerous planes heading to Brazil to return to their points of origin and make unscheduled landings at airports from Puerto Rico to Chile.
“This is total chaos here. I have never seen anything like it, and it makes me feel very unsafe,” said Eli Rocha, 52, of Oklahoma City, who was trying to board a flight to Dallas on Saturday at Sao Paulo’s international airport.
The confusion followed a nationally televised speech by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who tried to calm the nation Friday night by announcing new safety measures and saying authorities will build a new airport in Sao Paulo, where an Airbus A320 operated by TAM Airlines crashed, killing 191 people.
All 187 people aboard and at least four on the ground died when the jetliner raced down the runway, skipped over a crowded highway and exploded in a fireball that was still smoldering three days later. Many experts have said the short, rain-slicked runway could have contributed to the disaster at the downtown Congonhas airport, Brazil’s busiest.
Silva’s speech Friday night was his first public pronouncement about the crash except for a brief statement.
“Our aviation system, in spite of the investments we have made in expansion and modernization of almost all Brazilian airports, is passing through difficulties,” Silva said. “The security of our aviation system is compatible with all the international standards. We cannot lose sight of this.”
Silva said aviation officials will limit the number of flights and restrict the weight of planes traveling into Congonhas airport and that the location of the new airport will be chosen within 90 days.
But Sao Paulo’s Mayor Gilberto Kassab told reporters Saturday that building a new airport – which could take between five and 10 years – was not a priority for the city, which would instead seek to claim houses around Congonhas airport as eminent domain in order to lengthen runways.
The radar problem forced American Airlines to divert 13 Brazil-bound planes that had departed from New York, Miami and Dallas, said company spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan.
Two American Airlines flights from Sao Paulo to Miami made unscheduled landings in the jungle city of Manaus, said Celso Gick, a spokesman for Brazilian airport authority Infraero. Brazilian media reported that another American Airlines flight landed in Santiago, Chile.
Delta Airlines spokeswoman Thonnia Lee said six of its flights were also diverted – three from the United States and three from Brazil. Flight 121 from New York was diverted to San Juan, Puerto Rico, before refueling and taking off again for Sao Paulo, arriving more than four hours late.
Four United Airlines flights were also canceled as a result of the outage, spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said. In addition, Brazil’s Globo TV reported on its Web site that Brazil-bound flights from Colombia, Panama and Venezuela were affected.
Also Saturday, officials said they had mistakenly sent part of the plane’s fuselage to the United States, thinking it was the flight recorder.
Gen. Jorge Kersul Filho, head of the air force’s accident prevention division, told reporters the real flight recorder had been found Saturday in the wreckage and would be sent to Washington for analysis, a process expected to take several days.
