Passengers who arrived at Santos Dumont airport, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, before dawn on Friday (28) for the day's first departures found cancellations on the boards. The first flight, an Azul service to Campinas, was due to leave at 6:15 a.m., and a Latam flight to Guarulhos was scheduled at the same time. Neither took off: according to Infraero, the state-owned company that runs the airport, 13 morning departures were canceled, most of them bound for Sao Paulo.

The cause was an accident the day before. At around 4:10 p.m. on Thursday (27), a small Embraer jet skidded while landing and came to a stop on the grass beside the runway, according to Veja magazine. No one was hurt: only the pilot and one crew member were on board. The airport's emergency plan was activated immediately, and fire crews were sent to the scene.

While the runway stayed closed, 15 flights were diverted to Galeao, Rio's international airport, and 71 were canceled across arrivals and departures, Infraero said in a statement. The aircraft was removed only around 11 p.m., when the runway was cleared. Because the planes that were supposed to overnight at the airport could not land on Thursday, there were not enough aircraft for the dawn departures.

What changes for travelers on Friday

• Santos Dumont is operating normally, in visual mode, since Thursday night;
• 13 Friday morning departures were canceled, on Azul, Latam and Gol;
• The flight network was readjusted and affected passengers were rebooked, some of them through Galeao.

Infraero, which operates the terminal, said in a statement that "the flight network was readjusted and passengers were rebooked through Galeao airport". The investigation into what caused the runway excursion is in the hands of Cenipa, the Brazilian Air Force body that investigates aviation accidents, whose technicians went to the airport on Thursday to begin their work.

Santos Dumont is Rio's most central airport, sitting on the edge of Guanabara Bay, and handles much of the busy air shuttle to Sao Paulo. Runway problems there tend to hit that route right away, as seen on Friday morning: most of the cancellations were flights to Campinas and Guarulhos.