Death in the Air: Fire and Fumes

The pilot's voice was calm, almost as if he were describing the sights of Paris to his 117 passengers. "I have mechanical trouble with my engines," he told the control tower at Orly Airport. The control tower at Orly alerted all rescue units and prepared for an emergency landing by the crippled craft. The alert was in vain. Only a minute and a half before its scheduled landing, the Brazilian Varig Airlines 707, which had flown from Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, crash-landed in an onion field 2 1/2 miles from the airport.

The landing left the plane remarkably undamaged--but only for a few seconds. Deadly fumes from the plane's synthetic interior probably killed most. Fire, so intense that it melted the roof of the plane, took care of the rest. In all, 122 of the 134 people aboard died, most of them Brazilians. Among the victims were Filinto Muller, president of the Brazilian Senate and head of the ruling party, and two popular musicians, Agostinho dos Santos and Jose Iglesias. Only those in the cockpit and the first few rows of seats were spared. Of the twelve survivors, eleven were crew members who were stationed at the front of the plane; unlike the passengers, some of them apparently had protective smoke masks. Six other crew members died.

Stunned, Captain Gilberto da Silva gave a rescuer his tie. "I won't need this," he said. "I am going to die." He was wrong--though he was seriously injured--and authorities at week's end were anxiously awaiting his report. Early speculation was that the fire had started in the rear toilet section of the aircraft, possibly from a short circuit. If the pilot could have kept the plane airborne for only 90 seconds more, said Orly officials, their fire equipment might have quickly doused the flames and saved many lives.

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