Amazon radar failure deepens Brazil air travel woes

SAO PAULO, July 22 (Reuters) Radar that tracks planes over the vast Amazon jungle failed for several hours early yesterday, forcing a dozen international flights to change course, Brazil's airports authority said.

The radar glitch came just four days after the country's worst plane crash and hours after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised swift action to improve air safety.

Four American Airlines flights headed for Brazil turned back to Miami and two of the company's aircraft en route to the United States were grounded in the city of Manaus for several hours before the radar was restored, local media reported.

Flights from Panama, Venezuela and Colombia could not enter Brazil, the reports said. The airports authority, Infraero, said the radar outage forced five other international flights to turn back to Sao Paulo. Radar service was restored around 2:30 a.m. local time (530 GMT), Infraero said.

The radar problem contributed to cascading delays of domestic flights in Brazil, where more than half of yesterday's 1,282 flights were held up or canceled.

Early reports said a power outage had had caused the radar to fail. But Brazil's Air Force, which is responsible for the equipment, said it was investigating the possibility that air traffic controllers frustrated by poor pay deliberately shut down the radar system.

On Tuesday, an Airbus A320 crashed at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport, killing all 187 people on board and others on the ground.

Safety experts have said a slippery runway, pilot error or problems with the plane's braking system could have contributed to the crash.

It was Brazil's second major aviation disaster in 10 months.

Air travel in Brazil has been chaotic since a Boeing 737 clipped wings with a private jet last September at 37,000 feet over the Amazon jungle. All 154 people on the Boeing were killed. That crash occurred in the region tracked by the radar that malfunctioned yesterday.

Air traffic controllers, fearing they were being made scapegoats for the Boeing crash, have staged periodic work slowdowns to protest what they call deficient radar and radio equipment and poor salaries.

Delays and cancellations have become routine, prompting some frustrated passengers to storm airfields and ticket counters in protest.

The latest crash put added pressure on Lula to invest more in airport infrastructure and clean up the airports authority. Congress is investigating allegations that authority officials have taken bribes from contractors.

On Friday, Lula promised he would build a third airport in Sao Paulo, reduce air traffic at the congested domestic airport Congonhas and reroute flights to the city's international airport, Guarulhos on the outskirts of the city.

REUTERS DH PM0756