Brazilian authorities find missing airliner with 155 aboard

9/30/2006
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL Brazilian air force pilots searching for a jetliner that disappeared with 155 people aboard spotted the wreckage of the aircraft today, deep in the Amazon jungle. Emergency crews were unable to reach the plane immediately, and the fate of the passengers was unknown.

The president of Brazil s airport authority, Jose Carlos Pereira, said the pilots searched for Flight 1907 through the night in the thickly forested region before finding the wreckage. The Gol airlines Boeing 737 vanished Friday on its way from Manaus, a major river city in the heart of the Amazon rain forest, to Rio de Janeiro, 1,700 miles away.

At this moment there is no way of telling if there are any survivors, said Denise Abreu one of the directors of the Brazilian Aviation Agency.

She said the plane crashed near a large cattle ranch by the Xingu Indian reservation, 1,090 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

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