"An accident occurred with Flight 1907," GOL said, adding that the wreckage was located in a remote area of northern Mato Grosso state.
BRASILIA: The wreckage of a missing Brazilian GOL Airlines Boeing 737 was spotted on Saturday in a densely forested area of northern Brazil, and officials feared the worst for the 155 passengers and crew members on board.
"An accident occurred with Flight 1907," GOL said, adding that the wreckage was located in a remote area of northern Mato Grosso state.
"It would be very difficult for anyone to survive such a crash," Jose Carlos Pereira, president of the Infraero company that runs Brazilian airports, told journalists.
The airline said it was not known whether any of the 149 passengers and six crew members survived the crash, which occurred on Friday during a flight from the Amazon city of Manaus that was bound for Brasilia and scheduled to fly on to Rio de Janeiro.
"The search team found the wreckage in the middle of dense forest, and there was no sign of fire in the area," the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) said in a statement.
It said the plane was spotted 200 kilometers from the Peixote Azevedo municipality. Helicopters and military troops were deployed to try to make their way to the area of the crash, which was spotted by airborne search crews.
Authorities were trying to establish whether the airliner had collided with a Legacy executive jet whose pilot made an emergency landing on Friday in Cachimbo, near the area where the Boeing last made contact.
Defence Minister Waldir Pires said on Friday the Legacy was seriously damaged in what appeared to be a collision. "The collision was, presumably, with the GOL Boeing," he told Bandeirantes television.
But ANAC said there was no evidence to support that "hypothesis."
"It is not possible to state that there is a link between the incident that forced the crew (of the Legacy) to make an emergency landing at the Cachimbo airport and the disappearance of the GOL aircraft," ANAC said.
Dozens of anxious relatives and friends of those missing had gathered at the Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and Manaus airports during the night, seeking information about their loved ones.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}