Over 180 charred bodies have been recovered from the burnt-out wreckage of Brazil’s deadliest air disaster amid angry accusations that safety concerns had been ignored.

On Tuesday a TAM Airlines flight careened off a slick runway upon landing at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport before flying off a steep bank that separated the runway from the multi-lane highway below.

Witnesses said that the pilots tried to take off again but the plane crashed into a building and exploded beside a Shell petrol station.

All 186 passengers and crew on the Airbus 320 are believed to have died. It is not known how many people were in the warehouse but so far three bodies have been recovered from the building.

One of the aircraft’s black boxes was also recovered. Jorge Kersul Filho, director of the Air Force’s Centre for Investigation and Prevention of Air Accidents, said it would be sent to America for analysis and it could take as long as ten months before the accident’s cause could be determined.

Mr Kersul said a video of the landing showed the TAM plane was travelling at a very high speed and it appeared the pilot tried to take off again before the crash.

“He jumped over the avenue, an indication that he tried to take off. Otherwise he would have gone nose-down at the end of the runway.” He added that it appeared the pilot had enough room to stop.

Cezar Britto, president of The Order of Lawyers of Brazil, said it was “a tragedy waiting to happen,” echoing opposition and national media criticism of precarious conditions at the airport.

“What exploded in Cagonhas was not just the TAM airbus and almost 200 victims but the credibility of the Brazilian aviation system,” Mr Britto said.

Cagonhas is notorious for a runway some officials consider too short and which pilots say becomes slick when wet.

“The runway was as slippery as soap,” an unnamed pilot told the O Globo daily, adding that authorities should not have allowed the plane to land at in such conditions.

Rescuers said they had pulled 181 bodies from the twisted metal of the plane and surrounding warehouse rubble.

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