The media are full of reports on the terrible crash of a TAM Airlines A320 at Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Total casualties are believed to be about 200, including 170 passengers filling the flight from Porto Alegre (a city of about 5 million) to São Paulo, one of the largest cities in the world, with 11 million living within the city limits and 29 million estimated in the greater metropolitan area, dwarfing New York City.The causes of the crash are already being studied, but the recent repaving of the runway may have played a role in causing the airplane to run past the end and hit a gasoline station, which burst into flames, aggravating the damage. Although air travel remains one of the safest ways to travel, airplanes do occasionally overshoot the ends of shorter runways, particularly when rain, snow, or ice aggravate conditions. Runway overshoots have happened at Chicago Midway and Burbank Airports, as well as Toronto's Pearson Airport and various overseas...(Read Full Post)