SAO PAULO, July 18: Rescue workers pulled scores of bodies from the charred wreckage of a plane here on Wednesday, as experts began investigating the deadliest plane crash in Brazil's history, which left more than 200 people dead.

The Tam Airlines Airbus 320 careened off the notoriously short and slippery runway at Sao Paulo’s Cagonhas airport in driving rain late on Tuesday.

It skidded across a crowded avenue, slammed into the company’s three-story offices and exploded into a ball of flame.

Sao Paulo State Governor Jose Serra said none of the 186 people aboard Flight-3054 from the Porto Alegre city could have survived the crash, with temperatures in the inferno reaching 1,000 degrees centigrade.

A number of people on the ground also were killed in the crash.

“The plane accelerated when it reached the end of the runway and tried to take off again to avoid the avenue, but it crashed into the building and exploded,” a salesman Junior Matos said after witnessing the disaster.

The airport -- the busiest in Brazil -- is notorious for its short and often slippery runway, and its proximity to the city centre.

Brazil’s airport administrator Infraero said that some resurfacing work had been done on the main runway, which was closed from May 14 to June 29, and that more construction aimed at improving water drains was scheduled in September.

Prior to the construction work, the runway was often closed during rainy conditions, but there had been a number of incidents of planes skidding off the tarmac, the latest just one day before Tuesday’s crash.

Rescue workers managed to recover one of the plane’s black boxes, local media reported.France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said it was sending two of its investigators and that its German counterpart, the BFU was sending another two. Five Airbus experts also were on their way.

By Wednesday morning, rescuers had retrieved 103 bodies from the scene of the crash and another three people died after being taken to a hospital.

Sixteen of the confirmed fatalities were on the ground when the plane crashed into the office building, but the number of people killed in and around the building could be higher.

“I saw about 25 charred bodies around the plane, and a dead couple inside a car,” said Douglas Ferrari, a doctor, adding that many people had jumped out of the windows of the office building.

The avenue across which the plane skidded was “packed with people” at the time, a street vendor said.

Only the tail end of the aircraft remained visible from outside the building.

At Porto Alegre’s airport, anxious relatives and friends waited for news of their loved ones, many wailing and crying.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national mourning, while Pope Benedict XVI sent his condolences. Congonhas airport opened an auxiliary runway on Tuesday, allowing a limited number of flights to land and take off, but the main runway remained closed.

—AFP