Varig Porto Alegre, by Otto Ernst Meyer-Labastille, a German aviator decorated in the World War I, who immigrated to Brazil in 1921 and noticed how necessary air transportation was for a large country like Brazil. Varig was an off-spring of the German trade company and airline Condor Syndikat, thus sharing the same origin as Syndicato Condor, later renamed Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul. Condor Syndikat gave the initial operational and financial support and for a short time Varig and the sister-company Syndicato Condor operated in partnership. The first aircraft of VARIG was a ten-passenger Dornier Do J Wal flying boat, transferred
American Airlines Flight 77 had already crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center and Flight 175 was known to have been hijacked and was within minutes of striking the South Tower. After learning of this second hijacking involving an American Airlines aircraft and the hijacking involving United Airlines, American Airlines' executive vice president Gerard Arpey ordered a nationwide ground stop for the airline. The Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center, as well as American Airlines dispatchers, made several failed attempts to contact the aircraft. At the time the airplane was hijacked, it was flying over an area of limited radar coverage. With