Brazil planes collide over Amazon, 155 missing

SAO PAULO, Brazil, Sep 30 (Reuters) A Brazilian airline passenger plane with 155 people on board disappeared over the Amazon jungle after colliding with a small plane, the company and news reports said.

The mayor of a remote town in the central state of Mato Grosso said the plane had crashed yesterday on a farm in Peixoto de Azevedo municipality. The report could not immediately be confirmed by other authorities.

Gol flight 1907, flying from the principle Amazon city of Manaus bound for the national capital Brasilia, disappeared after losing radar contact, the company said.

The head of Brazil's airports authority, Infraero, said the Gol aircraft collided with another smaller plane, Globo news agency reported.

The smaller plane, an executive jet, was able to land in a town called Serra do Cachimbo even though it suffered wing damage, Globo reported. Cachimbo is deep in the jungle about midway between Manaus and Brasilia.

Celso Gick, a spokesman in the Amazon region for Infraero, said the Boeing 737-800 was carrying 149 passengers and six crew members.

Gol said the flight had 155 passengers on board but made no mention of crew members. Brazil's civil aviation authority said the plane was transporting 155 people and lost contact around the town of Sao Felix do Xingu.

''From the information we have, the plane fell on Jarina farm,'' mayor Valter Mioto told Reuters. ''Hospitals in the region are ready to receive the injured.'' At Brasilia airport, dozens of friends and relatives, many weeping, gathered anxiously to await news.

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