Congonhas Airport has to be one of the scariest airports. Once you overran the runway, you’re doomed. The airport is entirely surrounded by buildings, and your plane would just crash into any of them if it overran the runway.

Even more than 17 years later this crash remains as the deadliest in South American's aviation history and one of the deadliest involving an Airbus A320.

The father of an intern who worked for me died at this crash. I called him to understand why he didn't showed up the next day, and his mother answered the call. When she said what happened, it felt very creepy. R.I.P. to all victims.

I live in São Paulo, very close to this airport. Every day I see airplanes landing and taking off over my head. In the place where the building used to be there's a memoriall for the victims, they have recently installed new lampposts - it looks beautiful. I feel this wave of sadness everytime I pass in front of it.

I agree with Mr. Camacho. They need to consider redesigning or relocating this runway. A plane is designed to land with one engine and therefore one reverser. If a plane ever loses an engine, I assume that they're most likely going to lose the reverser as well. The fact that a one-engine landing isn't recommended at this runway means it shouldn't be used at all. Engine failure in the air is uncommon but not impossible. The airport must be able to accept any airplane that needs to make an emergency landing regardless of whether they have both reversers or not. Also, literally, everyone outside of the airport is in danger every time a plane lands in the rain.

"Adjacent gas station" next to one of the most dangerous airports in the world??  ADJACENT??  Did the Sao Paolo municipal authorities receive the Darwin Award for permitting that?

I was on a flight due to land at this airport about a month before this crash. We were overweight, so we flew in a holding pattern for 2 hours to try and burn excess fuel before the pilots decided we were still too heavy for the runway and diverted to another airport. It was a bit annoying at the time, but we dealt with it. When we got back and saw this crash occured, we definitely didn't mind the diversion, it suddenly made sense!

It is easy to blame the pilot. But the lack of grooves is a management problem. Management wanted profit by landing planes on an unsafe surface so as not to close the airport.

Just for the record, yes we can still tell this is AI thumbnails, it doesn't go unnoticed.

should never gone on a bad runway in bad weather with reverser not working

Who loves this mayday series?

It should’ve been mandatory to have all reversers functional prior to the flight, or any flight for that matter. The fact that wasn’t standard regulation boggles my mind.

Sucks so many people die because of others mistakes

Watching mayday videos after a long day>>>

No investigative movie series beats the mayday air crash investigations

35L 😱 i still wake up every night 🌙 screaming in terror the nightmares of landing 747 on 35L 😭 it led to mine early retirement.

10:23 Imagine being the CEO and learning that your defective plane cost you a plane full of passengers AND a corporate building.

Poor captain. The airport and airline corporate fat cats give him a truly dangerous terminal and a malfunctioning airplane, and then blame HIM for becoming stressed in a crisis.

I trained in Congonhas as flight crew for the late Varig. I've flown in and out of Congonhas too many times to count. It's as bad as the Santos Dumont airport in Rio, another airport to avoid or pray very much wile landing in heavy rain. It's a very short runaway.
Is was raining heavil🎉🎉y, the runaway short and slippery, they overrode it, with only one reversor working, crashed the airport fences, went out onto the street beside the airport and crashed into the building of TAM express, the cargo shipping offices + warehouse, outside the airport, right beside the Tam Express there was a petrol station. A normal Shell petrol station where cars, motorbikes, trucks fill up. Smack in the middle of the city, a huge, busy metropolis, with buildings all around it. Being so in the urban center it only operates from 6h in the morning to 23h, or from 7h to 22h if the airplanes/choppers go over a certain noise level when landing or taking off.
I remember that day as if it were yesterday, my son was flying (he did go) the next afternoon to stay with family. I was terrified. Everyone was. It was all people would talk about.
The passengers burned alive. One of my mom's cousins was a congressman at the time, I don't remember what why, but he got to listen to the audio. There was a comittee about the accident. He was so traumatized, people were screaming while they burned alive, it was so brutal and so fast, nobody got to scape, open the doors, deploy the slides, nothing.
The public only has access to the transcripts and explanatory commentary from the authorities. It's bad enough for me. Unfortunately no passengers or crew survived, there were also 12 non passengers fatalities.
I wished the pilot had called an emergency because of the one reverser and the rainy conditions and gone to Guarulhos instead. I think complaining but live passengers would be better. Losing about 1h or 2h  commuting would've been nothing compared outcome of this tragedy.

Finally an episode I haven’t seen 🛌