Sao Paulo, July 18
A Brazilian passenger plane skidded off a runway in driving rain and crashed into a building bursting into flames and killing 200 people on board and on the ground, a fire service chief told local media.

“There’s 200 killed over there,” Manuel Antonio da Silva Araujo, a colonel in Sao Paulo’s fire department was quoted as saying by the online edition of the Folha de Sao Paulo daily.

Tam Airlines, Brazil’s largest, said the Airbus 320 was carrying 170 passengers and a crew of six when it crashed into the airline’s own offices across from the airport, which is located inside Sao Paulo city limits.

An earlier TV Globo report on the accident put the number of fatalities at three, with eight injured inside the building.

Tam’s flight JJ3054 from Porto Alegre, to the south, skidded off the runway, which was wet from rain, crossed a road and slammed into a Tam Express office across from the airport that handles packages and equipment, the airline said.

The airplane disappeared inside the building with only its tail end remaining visible from the outside, witnesses said.

As firefighters battled the blaze, two hours after the crash the first victims were seen taken out of the building, witnesses said.

Earlier reports had said the plane had crashed into a gas station outside the airport perimetre. — AFP