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Brazil crash: systems failed
17/11/2006 09:20 - (SA)
Brazil - Warning systems failed on both an executive jet and a commercial airliner before the two planes collided in September and the larger plane crashed, killing 154 people in Brazil's worst air disaster, an Air Force investigator said Thursday.
The executive jet also was flying 1,000 feet off its original flight plan, putting it on a collision course with the airliner, Col. Rufino Antonio da Silva Ferreira said at a news conference.
In the Sept. 29 crash, the Gol Airlines Boeing 737-800 plunged into Brazil's dense jungle, killing all 154 people aboard. The Legacy landed safely with all seven people aboard unharmed, and its two American pilots have been barred from leaving Brazil. They deny wrongdoing.
Ferreira said the executive jet, a Brazilian-made Legacy owned by ExcelAire Service Inc. of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., "remained at 37,000 feet until the moment of collision." The plane's original flight plan called for it to be at 38,000 feet on the section of its route where the collision occurred.
ExcelAire has denied their pilots violated instructions. Lawyer Robert Torricella said the Legacy was cleared by air traffic controllers to fly at 37,000 feet all the way to the northwestern city of Manaus in the Amazon jungle - even though odd-numbered altitudes are reserved internationally for southbound flights.
"The flight plan was cleared by air traffic control for the Legacy to fly at 37,000 feet to Manaus," he said by telephone. "The (pilots) never received a contrary order."
Ferreira said neither crew saw the other plane coming.
"No one saw anyone," he said. "No one tried evasive action."
Authorities have seized the passports of the American pilots of the Legacy so they can't leave the country. Prosecutors have said that Joseph Lepore, 42, of Bay Shore, N.Y., and Jan Paladino, 34, of Westhampton Beach, N.Y., could be charged with involuntary manslaughter if they are found responsible for the crash.
Ferreira said he had not interviewed the air traffic controllers and was waiting for a technical report on the condition of the transponders, devices that signal a plane's presence and altitude.
The two American pilots were interviewed and were "cooperative," Ferreira said.
The U.S. pilots union and their international umbrella federation released a statement calling for the release of the two.
"Thus far, only contradictory facts, rumor and unsupported allegations have been forthcoming from Brazilian government officials," the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, which represents more than 100,000 airline pilots in more than 95 countries, said in a statement.
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