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All three networks covered the airline disaster in Sao Paulo--although none of them had a correspondent filing from Brazil. CBS had Byron Pitts narrate the crash footage from New York while ABC and NBC used their Washington DC bureaus. An Airbus 320 jetliner operated by TAM Airlines crash-landed into a gasoline station on a major highway at the end of the runway at Congonhas Airport. Some 200 people were killed--every one of the 186 on the plane and others on the ground.
CBS' Pitts emphasized the driving rain at the time: "According to eyewitnesses the weather was terrible" probably forcing the pilot to attempt a "touch and go"--an effort to abort a landing, take off again and circle round. ABC's Lisa Stark concentrated on the airport's short runway, at 6,300 feet. In this country, Stark explained, the Federal Aviation Administration requires all airports to build a 1,000-foot safety zone to prevent so-called excursions beyond the length of the tarmac. Airports like New York City's LaGuardia, whose 7,000-foot runway leaves no room for such a zone, are required to build arrestor beds of crushable concrete to bring speeding planes to a stop. NBC's Tom Costello called attention to the concrete construction of the fatal runway. It is "without the cement grooves to bleed off rainwater." As a consequence, Costello suggested, the jet may have hydroplaned when the pilot tried to land it.
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