Brazilian prosecutors called for the immediate closure of Sao Paulo's domestic airport today in the wake the country's worst air disaster and as a second passenger plane was forced to abort its landing.
Sao Paulo's governor, Jose Serra, admitted that the volume of air traffic at Congonhas, Brazil's busiest airport, needed to be drastically reduced following Tuesday night's accident, in which a plane belonging to Brazil's TAM airline veered off the runway, hit a nearby warehouse and exploded, killing all 186 people on board and three on the ground.
Video footage of the landing appeared to show Flight 3054 accelerating as it hit the notoriously short runway. Authorities said they believed the pilot had been trying abort his landing and take off again just before impact.
Rescue workers were forced to suspend the search for victims because of fears that the building at the crash scene was about to collapse. By early this morning, when the search was interrupted, authorities had confirmed 183 deaths. Fire chief Nilton Miranda told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper he expected to find at least 20 more bodies inside of the warehouse. Four Europeans citizens, three from France and one from Portugal, were reportedly among those onboard the flight from the southern city of Porto Alegre.
Congonhas airport is renowned for its short runways. Pilots are instructed to touch down within the first 1,000ft (300m), or pull up and circle round again. Yesterday, another TAM airline jet was rerouted to the city's international airport after coming in at an unsafe angle.
Federal prosecutors said in a statement: "It is necessary to temporarily paralyse the activities at the Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo until a complete renovation of both of its runways can be completed and there is certainty that they are fully secure for full operations." Shutting the airport would have knock-on effects on flights throughout Latin America.
In a statement the senate leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSDB), Arthur Virgilio - whose colleague, the opposition leader Julio Redecker, was killed in the crash - said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, needed to "act, not to talk".
"Otherwise his term will be marked by the suffering and pain of so many Brazilians who could still be alive."