RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Air force planes searched the dense Amazon jungle Saturday for a jetliner that disappeared with at least 145 people aboard, Brazilian aviation authorities said.
The president of Brazil's airport authority, Jose Carlos Pereira, said five planes searched for Flight 1907 through the night in the thickly forested region. The Gol airlines Boeing 737 vanished Friday on its way from Manaus, a major river city in the heart of the Amazon rain forest, to Rio de Janeiro, 1,700 miles away.
Gol said late Friday that there were 155 people aboard the jet _ 149 passengers and six crew members. The airline released a list early Saturday with 145 names of those aboard, but did not explain the discrepancy.
Before Friday, Brazil's deadliest air accident was in 1982, when a Vasp 747 crashed in the northeastern city of Fortaleza, killing 137 people.
Authorities initially said the Gol jet struck a Brazilian-made Legacy 600 executive jet near the Serra do Cachimbo region in Para state, and the smaller plane was able to land with damage to its wing and tail.
The authorities later said they were no longer certain that there had been a collision.
"It is impossible to confirm that there is a relation between the incident which caused the (Legacy) crew to perform an emergency landing in Cachimbo and the disappearance of the Gol airplane," federal aviation officials said in a statement early Saturday morning
The Estado news agency quoted Col. Ramon Bueno, head of regional flight protection in Sao Paulo, as saying a mid-air collision was "inexplicable."
"The two planes are very modern and have anti-collision systems, which sound an alarm to alert the plane to any obstacle," Buena told Estado.
Officials offered no further explanation of why they changed their assessment of the possible cause of the crash.
Meanwhile, some 70 family members and friends of the passengers gathered in a warehouse owned by Gol at the Brasilia airport.
"We are awaiting information from officials of the aviation authorities about the flight," Gol said.
The flight between Manaus and Rio is popular with foreign tourists but there was no immediate word on the nationalities of those aboard.
U.S. Consular Officer Robin Busse was at the airport seeking a passenger list but did not say if any Americans had been aboard either plane.
Sergio Misaci, 47, said his brother Lazaro, 58, had been traveling to Brasilia to celebrate their mother's 80th birthday.
"I have all the hope in the world. We have to root for them and have faith in God," Misaci said. He added that he had lived in Manaus for six years and was sure they wouldn't find the plane for at least 24 hours.
"The trees there are 50 and 60 meters high and you can't see anything," he said.
The smaller plane, which carries up to 16 passengers, was making its inaugural flight to the United States, where it had been purchased by an American company, said its manufacturer, Embraer.
It was piloted by a U.S. citizen, who had left from the airport in Sao Jose dos Campos, near Sao Paulo, said Bueno, the regional flight protection head in Sao Paulo.
The Brazilian Aviation agency said in a statement that the Gol plane disappeared about 130 miles south of the city of Cachimbo in the remote southwestern region of Para state, some 1,250 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro.
The disappearance was the first major incident for Gol Linhas Aereas Intelligentes SA, an upstart Brazilian airline that took to the skies in 2001 with just six Boeing 737s in 2001, serving seven Brazilian cities.
Since then Gol has rapidly gained market share by offering low-cost tickets, modeling its service after low-cost carriers in the United States and Europe. It has used the same model of plane throughout its fleet to keep costs down, while giving passengers cold box lunches and soft drinks instead of hot meals and free alcohol, the norm on most Brazilian flights. The company is now Brazil's second-largest airline, with more than 500 daily flights within Brazil and to Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Gol, started by the heirs of a successful bus company, also benefited from the demise of Brazil's flagship airline, Varig.
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