Naman Shrestha
Originally titled ‘Congonhas: Tragédia Anunciada,’ Netflix’s ‘A Tragedy Foretold: Flight 3054’ chronicles the São Paulo plane crash tragedy of 2007 that led to the loss of 199 innocent lives. As the entire ordeal was investigated to find the reason behind the horrific accident, the airline company TAM was at the heart of it all. While there were multiple deaths, there were several who survived the tragedy, including two TAM Express employees — Paulo Zani and Wanderlei Silva. In the three-part documentary, the two survivors shared their firsthand experience of the crash and how they dealt with the aftermath.
Paulo Zani and Wanderlei Silva Were Saved by the Firefighters After the Crash
On the fateful evening of July 17, 2007, Paulo Roberto Zani and Waderlei Silva were working at the TAM Express building near the São Paulo–Congonhas Airport when the TAM Airlines Flight 3054 crashed right into their building. When fire and smoke filled the entire place, the two colleagues managed to crawl through the burning hallways and broke a window with a chair. As it got harder for them to breathe, Paulo asked for help from the firefighters. At one point, Wanderlei wanted to jump, but his colleague convinced him to wait for help.
Meanwhile, they kept leaning out of the window and covering their noses with their clothes to keep themselves conscious and breathing. After an hour of being trapped in the building, help arrived when a firefighter rescued both of them. They got a second chance at life, as a few minutes later, the entire building collapsed. Looking back at the incident, Paulo stated, “My life was marked, divided between before and after the accident. Every day I remember (the accident). I lie in bed and, every night, I give thanks for my salvation.”
Paulo Zani is the CTO of a Publishing Company Today
The former TAM Express employee, Paulo Roberto Zani, majored in Information Technology from Unilins – Centro Universitário de Lins. He earned his post-graduation degree in Business Administration from USP – Universidade de São Paulo. After coming out of the tragic plane accident alive and leaving his job at TAM as a Project Manager, Paulo shook hands with IBM, where he was employed as a Service Delivery Manager from November 2007 to January 2012. Next, he made two quick switches to DTS Consulting and MSDevelop, where he served as an IT Manager.
In November 2013, he landed a job at Magazine Luiza as a Project Manager. A couple of years later, Paulo joined Natura as an Infrastructure Project Manager, which was followed by his four-year stint at Grupo IOB as a Software Development Manager. For a while, he once again worked as a Senior Delivery Manager at FOURSYS, before bagging a job at Sonepar Brazil, where he was employed as a Senior IT Manager. Then, he became the Senior Project Manager at Smart Online, before serving as a Senior IT Manager at MeuChapa. Since September 2024, Paulo has been serving as the Chief Technology Officer of CEDET. He is also one of the board members of the Board Club. The survivor of the Flight 3054 crash currently resides in Campinas, São Paulo, and prefers to keep the details of his personal life under wraps.
Wanderlei Silva Currently Holds a Leadership Role at a Software Development Company
It was in 1995 when Wanderlei Silva reportedly began his career as a system analyst at Teracom Informatica. Right before he was employed at TAM as a System Project Manager, he was a Project Coordinator and System Analyst at CET Consultaria. Following the tragedy of 2007, he too joined IBM as a Service Delivery Manager. He moved up the ranks in the following years and became the Delivery Project Executive at the company. Between January 2013 and April 2014, Wanderlei worked as an independent consultant in the system and cosmetic areas.
In the next six years, he worked two jobs simultaneously — Customer Project and Program Manager at DXC Technology and Senior Project Manager at Hewlett-Packard. In between, he earned an MBA degree in Finance from Ibmec RJ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As of today, Wanderlei Silva is employed at Smart Online, where he serves as the Head of Software Factory. Although we know that he is a resident of Matão in São Paulo, Brazil, not much is known about his personal and familial life. Thus, from what we can tell, Wanderlei prefers to keep that aspect of his life away from the limelight, and understandably so.
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