MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil mourns air crash victims

Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has declared three days of national mourning after the crash of a passenger plane with 155 people aboard.

There is no sign of survivors at the crash site in the Amazonian state of Mato Grosso, the air force said.

Soldiers dropped into the remote area have been clearing dense vegetation so that helicopters can land. The Boeing 737-800 Next Generation plane was flying from Manaus to the capital, Brasilia, when it vanished from radar screens on Friday.

Aviation officials are investigating the possibility that it collided with a smaller plane.

If no survivors are found, Friday's crash would become the worst air disaster in Brazil's history.

The plane was operated by the budget airline Gol.

"It would be very difficult for anyone to survive such a crash," Jose Carlos Pereira, president of the Brazilian airport authority, told journalists.

"Our experience shows that when one cannot find the fuselage relatively intact and when the wreckage is concentrated in a relatively small area, the chances of finding any survivors are practically non-existent," he added.

A Gol airline statement state said the wreckage had been found 30 km (19 miles) north of the town of Peixote Azevedo.

Initial reports said the airliner collided with a smaller private plane, but aviation officials now say this cannot be confirmed.

"Speculation won't get us anywhere at this time," Gol's president, Constantino said, adding that the plane, Gol's first to suffer an accident, was among "the most modern aircraft, with all equipment functioning in perfect order" noted that the Boeing aircraft had capacity for 178 passengers plus the crew members, had been received from the manufacturer on Sept. 12 and had just 234 flight hours.

"Gol's airplanes have flown more than 650,000 hours without a fatal accident since the company entered into operations on the 15th of January 2001," Oliveira Junior said.

Gol has grown exponentially since it took to the skies, dramatically boosting its fleet using the same model of plane to keep costs down while giving passengers cold box lunches and soft drinks instead of hot meals and free alcohol, the norm on most Brazilian flights.

The company is now Brazil's second-largest airline after Tam Linhas Aereas SA, with more than 500 daily flights within Brazil and to Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.