São Paulo, Brazil – More than 5,000 teary-eyed Brazilians marched Sunday to the site of a plane crash that killed 199 people, blaming the government for the nation’s deadliest aviation disaster.
At the front of the group was Mauricio Pereira, who wore a T-shirt with a picture of his 22-year-old daughter, Mariana, a first-year medical student who was aboard TAM airlines Flight 3054 when it sped off a runway and slammed into an air cargo building.
“Corrupt and incompetent officials killed my daughter,” read a banner that Pereira held as he walked 6 miles from a park to the crash site just outside Congonhas airport, the nation’s busiest.
Pereira and hundreds of other demonstrators threw flowers toward the gutted building and shook hands and hugged firefighters who had retrieved the charred remains of the victims. The crowd then recited the Lord’s Prayer in unison, sang Brazil’s national anthem and demanded President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s ouster.
The respected news weekly Veja reported over the weekend that information from the flight recorders showed one of the jet’s throttles was in the accelerate position instead of idle while touching down, suggesting pilot error. Veja did not say how it obtained the information. The recorders were analyzed in the U.S. and returned to Brazil last week.
But many marchers said they doubted the report because it would ease pressure on Silva – known widely as Lula – whose administration came under withering criticism after the July 17 crash for failing to invest in airport infrastructure over the past five years despite a commercial travel boom.
“It’s the best thing for Lula that could have happened,” said Gabriela Paulino, a lawyer who did not know anyone on the jet but carried a yellow rose for victims. “Now they’re going to blame the pilot because he’s dead.”
Protesters called on Brazilians to boycott commercial flights Aug. 18, when they plan another demonstration at Congonhas.
