Pope Benedict said he was praying for victims of the Brazilian passenger plane that crashed in Sao Paulo on Tuesday, killing as many as 200 people in what may be the country's worst air disaster.

|PIC1|"The Holy Father ... asks God to give strength and comfort for the injured and all those who were affected by this tragedy," the Vatican said, in a telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone.

The Pope visited Brazil in May.

Rescue workers sifted on Wednesday through the smoldering wreckage of what is Brazil's second major air disaster in less than a year.

By early morning, firemen had pulled 90 charred bodies from the Airbus A320 that had 186 people on board and from the ruins of a building the plane hit. They said they expected no survivors.

Three people in the building were found alive, but later died in hospital, raising the official death toll to 93, Sao Paulo state public security secretariat said. One fireman told local media the death toll could rise to 200.

Rescue teams found the plane's black box in the wreckage. It will be analyzed by Air Force specialists.

TAM Linhas Aereas, Brazil's No. 1 airline, released the list of passengers overnight. It had said earlier the number of people on board was 176.

The plane, flying from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, skidded off a wet landing strip after dark on Tuesday at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport, shot over a bustling avenue, and slammed into a cargo terminal where people were working.

The airport is known for slippery runways and some aviation experts have questioned if the runway had been sufficiently grooved to drain water in heavy rains.

Congonhas recently repaved one of its runways after officials tried to ban wide-bodied jets from the airport on fears they could skid off its short landing strips.

The airport reopened on Wednesday, using an auxiliary runway.

"It was an announced tragedy, an accident in waiting," said Sandra Assali, president of the Brazilian association of friends and relatives of air crash victims.

The TAM accident is likely to renew pressure on President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to tackle safety concerns in Brazil's chaotic aviation system. Critics say his administration has been dragging its feet.

Lula declared three days of mourning and ordered an investigation. Pope Benedict, who visited Sao Paulo in May, said he was praying for the victims, the Vatican said.

"When is the next (accident) going to be?" Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper asked in its online edition on Wednesday.

A major air accident in September last year threw Brazil's aviation system into disarray, exposing a series of problems including a lack of air traffic controllers and equipment.

In that accident, 154 people were killed when a Brazilian Boeing 737 clipped wings with a private jet and crashed in the Amazon jungle in what was then the country's worst air disaster.

Controllers went on strike to protest poor pay and what they called spotty radar and radio coverage.

As a result, flights have frequently been canceled or delayed and irate passengers have stormed airline counters in protest.

A congressional inquiry is investigating aviation security and accusations that directors at the national airports authority took bribes from contractors.