Latest news this morning is that the plane was flying without the reverse thruster on the right-side engine, and had been for about a week. Apparently this is permissible (according to Airbus), but combined with the recently paved and slick runway led to disaster. Despite the desire to find someone to blame, most incidents of this nature have multiple, complex causes.

As for the Brazilian flying experience, I've lived in Rio for several years and, while I won't stick up for Tam, I will say that they're not even the worst airline in Brazil. That honor belongs to the now-bankrupt Varig, which inherited the title from the now-defunct Vasp.

A lot of the problem stems from Brazil's fiscal situation, in which the national budget is so fully consumed by constitutionally-mandated transfer payments from the middle class to the upper middle class, that there is virtually no money left for infrastructure. Some estimates are that Sao Paulo's airports need up to $7B in investment before they're adequate to handle the traffic they need to handle. That, combined with the fact that Brazil's airport infrastructure agency (Infraero) has traditionally been a parking place for the brothers-in-law of influential congressmen, has resulted in airport infrastructure that is only surpassed in its precariousness by Brazil's execrable federal highway system.