Missing Brazil Jet, 46 Survivors Found in Jungle

A disabled Brazilian jetliner crash-landed in a remote wilderness area of the Amazon basin with 54 people aboard, and 46 of them survived, the Aeronautics Ministry reported Tuesday. The news came two days after the Boeing 737-200 disappeared.

The last radio contact with the Varig plane had come Sunday evening. It reported trouble with the plane’s navigation equipment and with an engine.

An air search Monday and early Tuesday across a huge area of tropical forest in Para and Mato Grosso states, south of the Amazon River, failed to find the missing craft. Four survivors then appeared on a ranch near the northern border of Mato Grosso, a spokesman for the ministry said by telephone from Brasilia, the national capital.

The spokesman said eight people were dead, but the victims were not identified.

Third Night in Wilderness

Although the plane had been located, the 42 survivors at the site had to spend a third night in the wilderness because rescue operations were suspended until daylight today, the spokesman said.

According to one report, the plane landed in a small clearing in the dense tropical forest. “It must have been a good place for so many to survive,” the ministry spokesman said.

Another ministry spokesman, Col. Ronaldo Borges, said the survivors, including all six crew members, are in good condition.

“The information we have is that the general condition of the survivors is good,” Borges told reporters. “We are expecting the last survivor to be efficiently rescued by midday.”

Rio’s Radio Nacional said earlier that one survivor, Epaminondas Chaves, had walked to a ranch and used a shortwave radio to call his wife in the city of Maraba. She told Radio Nacional that four people aboard the airliner were killed and six others were in “grave” condition. Apparently, four of the injured later died.

Landed in Clearing

Joao Alves da Silva Jr., a ham radio operator in Sao Paulo state, said he also spoke by radio with Chaves. Silva said Chaves told him that the plane landed in a clearing the size of a soccer field and that he had walked about three hours before reaching a ranch.

The ranch had no radio, but the owner took Chaves to a neighboring ranch that did, Silva said. After Chaves’ radio contact, a Brazilian air force plane spotted the grounded airliner, but by then it was late in the afternoon.

Chaves and two other passengers were taken to the Caximbo air force base in southern Para state, where rescue operations will be coordinated, said the government news agency Radiobras.

The agency said rescue operations were suspended because of darkness, but beginning at dawn today, four air force helicopters will ferry the survivors to the town of Sao Jose do Xingu in Mato Grosso state. From there they will go to the Caximbo base in Mato Grosso state, then to Brasilia.

At the crash-landing site, a transport plane parachuted packages of food, water and medicine for the survivors, the agency said.

Daylong Flight

The 737 was near the end of a daylong flight between the southern industrial city of Sao Paulo and the port city of Belem, a trip of more than 2,500 miles with six stops. The navigational equipment failed after the last stop at Maraba, 270 miles south of Belem.

Pilot Cesar Augusto Garcez said his plan was going to look for a place to land while burning off fuel to avoid an explosion in any crash-landing. Later Garcez radioed another Varig plane that he had problems with one of his turbines and fuel for only seven minutes in the air. He said he would attempt an emergency landing in a forest clearing.

Although the pilot was unable to give his location in the last radio transmission, the plane went down more than 400 miles southwest of Maraba, in the heavily forested township of Sao Jose do Xingu, near the Mato Grosso-Para state line.

The site also is near the Xingu River, an Amazon tributary, and the Xingu Indian reservation. Indians reported hearing a loud crash Sunday night.

After the airliner disappeared, the air force sent six airplanes and two helicopters on a search. Varig--Brazil’s biggest airline--sent two planes. Several other government and private planes also joined in the hunt.

On Monday night, relatives of passengers aboard the missing plane invaded Varig’s airport offices in Belem, demanding information. Some threatened airline officials.

“I’ll give you half an hour to give me concrete news, or I’m going to break everything here,” shouted one frustrated relative.