Runway 35-L at Sao Paolo Airport in northern Brazil has an unenviable reputation. It's unusually short for heavy passenger liners. And the airport is built on a flat-topped hill, surrounded by fall-offs on all sides, and is in the middle of a congested city.
The TAM Airbus flight in question has been given permission to land on 35-L but it's raining and the runway is slippery. On top of that, the airplane has only one reverse thruster working. These are extensions deployed at the aft end of the engines to slow the airplane down when it's on the ground, a kind of additional brake. And this flight has only one.
Question: What is this airplane doing in the air? They don't make it. The wheels touch down but the airplane's speed continues despite the reverse thruster and the pilot's standing on the brake pedals. It disintegrates as it hits a TAM hangar and a fuel station and bursts into flames reaching 1000 Celsius. The dead total 199, including a dozen in the fueling station and the TAM offices.
Causes: Runway 35-L had recently been resurface but the surface was left flat. The grooves that would have precluded standing water puddles was "left to further action." (Who wants to shut down a major airport in a big city?) The inactive reverse thruster had likewise been labeled, "further action required." No urgency because the Airbus had landed safely several times before with only one thrust reverser.
The two damaged flight recorders were retrieved from the tail and sent to the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington for analysis. That's what it means to be a wealthy and powerful nation. People come to you for help.
In any case, the recorders show that everything was done properly except that the single engine without a workable thrust reverser had not gone into idle, as is usual, but was putting out full power as if for take off. There was nothing the pilots could do.
In fact, the pilot had done everything according to normal procedures, except for one mistake. Overwrought with anxiety about the slippery and deadly Runway 25-L, he left the right engine at full power. The slight was overlooked by both him and the co-pilot in the dark cabin. The runway left no room for errors, large or small.