SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Short-circuited radar over the vast Amazon
region disrupted dozens of flights, deepening Brazil's aviation crisis
hours after the president unveiled safety measures prompted by the
country's deadliest air disaster.

In another embarrassment, authorities said Saturday they mistook a piece
of the fuselage from Tuesday's accident for the flight recorder and sent it
off for analysis.

Brazil's air force said a short circuit during routine maintenance
knocked out radar in the jungle city of Manaus from 11:15 p.m. Friday to
2:30 a.m. Saturday, prompting planes to turn back, set down or hold back
from takeoffs.

Seventeen flights were covered by the radar when it went down, the air
force said. Nine continued to their destinations and eight were rerouted.
It said none were in danger.

"This is total chaos here. I have never seen anything like it and it
makes me feel very unsafe," said Eli Rocha, 52, of Oklahoma City, who was
trying board a flight to Dallas on Saturday at Sao Paulo's international
airport. The flight was crowded with weary Americans arriving on other
delayed or diverted flights.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had tried to calm the nation Friday
night by announcing new air safety measures and promising a new airport in
Sao Paulo, where an Airbus 320 operated by TAM Airlines crashed, killing
all 187 people aboard and at least four on the ground.

The incoming jetliner raced down the runway, skipped over a crowded
highway and exploded in a fireball. Many experts have said that the short,
rain-slicked runway could have contributed to the disaster at the downtown
Congonhas airport, Brazil's busiest.

Silva said Friday that officials will limit the number of flights and
restrict the weight of planes at Congonhas, and will build a new facility
to help carry the load now handled by the airport.

But Sao Paulo's Mayor Gilberto Kassab told reporters Saturday that
building a new airport could take 10 years, so the city planned to extend
Congonhas's runways by expropriating nearby property under eminent domain.

Officials also said Saturday they had mistakenly sent part of the
plane's fuselage to the United States, thinking it was the flight recorder.

Gen. Jorge Kersul Filho, head of the air force's accident prevention
division, said the real flight recorder had been located and would be sent
to the U.S. for analysis, a process expected to take several days.

Because of the radar problem, American Airlines alone had to divert 13
Brazil-bound planes that had left New York, Miami and Dallas, company
spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said. Numerous other flights to and from
Brazil also were delayed.

Jose dos Santos, a 43-year-old cafe owner, was aboard a Delta flight
when the crew announced Brazil was not letting airplanes enter its airspace
because of the radar failure.

"I was saying, 'Oh my God, my life is over!' I was in a panic, all I
could think about was the Gol jet that crashed in the Amazon last year,"
Santos said, referring to the September crash of a Gol Airlines Boeing 737
that killed all 154 people aboard. That had been the country's worst air
disaster until Tuesday's accident.

Brazilian, French and U.S. investigators say it is too early to
determine the cause of Tuesday's crash.