Airline To Pay $1.3mn To Amazonian Tribe Over Damage To Ancestral Land From 2006 Plane Crash

28 March 2017

 - Brazilian airline Gol has agreed to pay R$4m ($1.3m) to the Kayapo indigenous tribe as compensation for material and spiritual damage caused by a 2006 plane crash which left a huge tract of their land “cursed”.

Almost 11 years ago, a Gol Boeing 737 passenger plane and a private jet were involved in a mid-air collision over the Amazon that sent the Gol aircraft crashing into the middle of the Kayapo’s reserve in the state of Mato Grosso. All 154 people on board were killed and the indigenous tribe has refused to return to the area where the plane crashed down. The wreckage has remained in the woods to this day.

The Kayapo say the land is contaminated by jet fuel and cursed because of the tragic loss of lives. Publica report that the tribe no longer eat bee’s honey from that area, nor do they hunt or farm on the land. One of the tribe’s 12 villages relocated as a result.