Brazil senator unhurt in copter crash

SAO PAULO, Brazil --A helicopter carrying Brazil's Senate president and a gubernatorial candidate crashed just before landing Saturday, but nobody aboard was injured, a spokesman said.

The crash occurred a day before national elections and a day after an airliner slammed into the ground in the remote Amazon jungle with 155 people aboard, with authorities saying they had little hope of finding survivors.

The helicopter carrying Senate President Renan Calheiros, a candidate for governor in the northeastern state of Alagoas, Teotonio Vilela, and two other people went down in the city of Arapiraca, some 1,150 miles northeast of Sao Paulo.

"It was just a scare," Calheiros' spokesman Douglas de Felice said. "There was damage to the helicopter but everyone walked out of it unharmed."

Felice said the helicopter had technical difficulties about 30 feet above the ground as it prepared to land in Arapiraca.

Brazilians go to the polls on Sunday to elect the president, governors for all 26 states and the federal district, all 513 federal deputies of the lower house and 27 of the 81 senate seats.

The incident happened a day after a a Gol airlines jet carrying 155 people crashed in the Amazon jungle. Officials said survivors were unlikely in that incident.