São José do Xingu São José do Xingu São José do Xingu is a municipality in the state of Mato Grosso in the Central-West Region of Brazil. On 3 September 1989, a Varig Boeing 737-241 registration PP-VMK operating flight 254 flying from São Paulo-Guarulhos to Belém-Val de Cães with intermediate stops, crashed near São José do Xingu while on the last leg of the flight between Marabá and Belém due to a pilot navigational error, which led to fuel exhaustion and a subsequent belly landing into the jungle, 40 km from São José do Xingu. Out of 54 occupants, there were 13 fatalities, all
Xingu peoples European slavers arrived in the Xingu region around 1750. Xinuguano population was estimated in the tens of thousands but was dramatically reduced by diseases and slavery by Europeans. In the centuries since the penetration of the Europeans into South America, the Xingu fled from different regions to escape modernization and cultural assimilation. Nonetheless settlers made it up as far as the upper run of the Rio Xingu. By the end of the 19th century, about 3,000 natives lived at the Alto Xingu, where their current political status has kept them protected against European intruders. By the mid twentieth century this