> 1.18 miles
>
> > How long is the runway over there.
> >
> > The main problem with this is that any time you have a rain soaked runway your
> > ground roll on landing is going to increase. Either way some nasty shit.

and they run A32x and 737s through there all the time. Part of it's the rain (which, to be fair, is probably much more extreme much more often in São Paulo than in Chicago, but then again São Paulo probably doesn't get much snow, which can give much the same conditions, I suspect) and the runway condition (new and it sounds like they didn't have it ready for wet weather), but I think the pilot probably made even a little mistake (landed a little long, for instance), tried to take off again, and just couldn't do it.

Of course, landing in Congonhas is probably quite different than landing at Midway (and from what I've gathered in the past twelve hours or so, it's probably closer to landing at Kai Tak, where you fly through the city in a very literal sense), so it's not really fair to make the comparison, I guess.