By VIVIAN SEQUERA
The Associated Press
Sunday, October 1, 2006; 3:30 PM

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Search crews hunted Sunday through the wreckage of a Brazilian jetliner that crashed in the Amazon rain forest, though authorities said there was little chance any of the 155 people aboard had survived.

The Boeing 737-800 apparently clipped a smaller executive jet which likely caused the crash Friday in jungle so dense that crews had to cut down trees Saturday to clear a space for rescue helicopters to land.

Banner headlines in Brazilian newspapers Sunday said there were no survivors from the crash, citing the nation's airport authority.

But air force officials still held out a slim possibility of survivors among the 149 passengers and six crew aboard Gol airlines Flight 1907. If they are confirmed dead, it would be Brazil's worst air disaster.

"There's little indication of survivors, but we won't rule out the possibility," Brazil Air Force Brig. Gen. Antonio Gomes Leite Filho said in a news conference Saturday night. "We haven't fully explored the crash scene; it's a very complicated area."

Filho said rescue operations would continue until authorities are sure there are no survivors. Searches resumed at daybreak Sunday after a break overnight.

The flight vanished Friday while flying from the jungle city of Manaus to Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. Searchers located the wreckage on Saturday.

The president of Brazil's airport authority, Jose Carlos Pereira, said Saturday the jetliner and a Brazilian-made Legacy executive jet may have collided before the crash, though that was still under investigation.

"There was some kind of contact between the two aircraft and it is highly probable that this was the cause," he said.

Pereira said the plane apparently hit the jungle floor at nearly 310 mph.

"At that speed it is highly unlikely any survivors will be found," he said.

He said a full investigation was needed to determine the cause and the air force said that investigation could take several months.

"The main question the investigation must address is how can this happen with two ultramodern aircraft with collision-preventing equipment," he said.

Gol said the jet that crashed had been delivered by Boeing Co. just three weeks ago and had been flown for only 200 hours.

Gol vice president David Barioni said both Brazilians and foreigners were aboard, but did not provide any breakdown.

If no survivors are found, it would surpass the 1982 crash of a Boeing 727 operated by the now-defunct Vasp airline that killed 137 people as Brazil's worst air disaster.

The wreckage was found near the 49,500-acre Jarina cattle ranch, 1,090 miles northwest of Sao Paulo in the state of Mato Grosso.

New York Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty said Times Business Travel columnist Joe Sharkey was one of seven people aboard the Legacy jet, which was on route from Sao Jose dos Campos, near Sao Paulo to the United States. Sharkey was on assignment in Brazil for a business magazine specializing on corporate jets.

Sharkey said the Legacy jet stabilized after the apparent collision and then landed at a Brazilian air force base in the Amazon state of Para, according to McNulty.

The general director for Brazil's Civil Aviation Agency Authority, Milton Zuanazzi, said the Legacy plane belonged to a company named Excel Air, which had been authorized to fly the aircraft out of Brazil.

It was the first major incident for Gol Linhas Aereas Intelligentes SA, now Brazil's second-largest airline.

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Associated Press writers Stan Lehman, Tales Azzoni and Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo, Harold Olmos in Brasilia and Michael Astor in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.