page_title: TAM Airlines Flight 3054
section_title: Congonhas
hierarchical_section_title: TAM Airlines Flight 3054 / Congonhas
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial view of the TAM Express warehouse near São Paulo/Congonhas Airport, Brazil. This photo was taken about five months before TAM Airlines Flight 3054 crashed into the warehouse.
context_page_description: TAM Airlines Flight 3054 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight from Porto Alegre to São Paulo, Brazil. On the evening of July 17, 2007, the Airbus A320-233 executing the flight overran runway 35L at São Paulo during moderate rain and crashed into a nearby TAM Express warehouse adjacent to a Shell filling station. The plane exploded on impact, killing all 187 passengers and crew on board and 12 people on the ground. The crash surpassed Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 as the deadliest aviation accident in Brazilian territory and in South American history, and remains the deadliest aviation accident involving the A320 proper worldwide, and the second-deadliest air disaster involving the A320 family, surpassed by the bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268, an A321-231, which crashed in Egypt in October 2015 with 224 fatalities.
  The accident was investigated by the Brazilian Air Force's Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center, with a final report issued in September 2009. CENIPA concluded that the accident was caused by errors committed by the pilots during the landing at São Paulo.
context_section_description: Aviation safety in Brazil had been under increased scrutiny following the mid-air collision in September 2006 over the Amazon of Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 and an Embraer Legacy 600 (see Brazil's 2006-2007 aviation crisis). Congonhas was singled out for having safety issues relating to operations in wet weather due to its location and runway characteristics for the traffic it serves.
  The 35L runway at Congonhas is 1,940 metres (6,360 ft) long. Congonhas' counterpart in Rio de Janeiro, the Santos Dumont Airport, has an even shorter runway, at 1,323 m (4,341 ft). Both airports receive the same type of traffic — ranging from small private planes to Boeing 737s and A320s. Many variables affect the landing distance of an aircraft, such as approach speed, weight and the presence of either a tailwind or a headwind. For an Airbus A320, a landing speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) higher than normal can result in as much as a 25% increase in the runway length needed to stop an aircraft. Wet weather can also significantly reduce the braking performance of aircraft, leading to an increase in the minimum runway length requirement.
  Pilots have called Congonhas airport the "aircraft carrier," because of the runway's short length and because pilots are told to go-around if they overshoot the first 1,000 feet (300 m) of runway.
  In February 2007, a Brazilian judge briefly banned flights using Fokker 100, Boeing 737-700 and Boeing 737-800 aircraft in and out of the airport. The Airbus A320 was not among the aircraft banned, due to its manufacturer-stated braking distance being shorter than those of the banned aircraft. Pilots had complained that water had been accumulating on the runway, reducing aircraft braking performance and occasionally causing planes to hydroplane. The judge claimed the runway needed to be 388 metres (1,273 ft) longer for these aircraft to operate safely. At the time, a spokeswoman from Brazil's National Civil Aviation Agency claimed "The safety conditions of the runway and the airport as a whole are adequate." TAM also objected to the decision, with a spokesman stating "If the injunction stands, it will cause total chaos," claiming over 10,000 passengers per day would be inconvenienced.
caption: The TAM Express warehouse before the crash
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