Posted on 10/04/2006 3:40:52 PM PDT by MadIvan
A Brazilian court has ordered police to seize the passports of two American pilots whose private jet is believed to have clipped a commercial plane that crashed last week, killing all 155 people on board.
Joseph Lepore, the pilot, and Jan Paladino, his co-pilot, were at the controls of a newly-built Embraer Legacy 600 jet when it collided with a Boeing 737 at 11,200m (37,000ft) on Friday, allegedly sending the larger plane spiralling to the floor of the Amazon rainforest, resulting in the deaths of all 155 passengers and crew on board.
Miraculously, the seven passengers on board the Legacy jet – all American – survived after their plane was able to land safely at a nearby air force base.
Judge Tiago de Abril in Mato Grosso state, where the Boeing 737 went down, said that police had seized the passports of Mr Lepore and Mr Paladino, both US citizens, as a "cautionary" measure while the investigation was proceeding.
But Maria Barbant, spokeswoman for the State Justice Department said that officials had acted "as a result of the doubts surrounding the case and the emergence of indications that the accident was caused by the Legacy."
She said the two were not arrested but "just prevented from leaving the country, at least until we know exactly what happened."
The two pilots arrived yesterday in Rio de Janeiro for medical and psychological tests as part of the enquiry. They face more questioning today. "They are being interviewed by the authorities and are giving their total cooperation with the investigation," said Glauco Paiva, a US consulate official in Rio.
Mid-air collisions are extremely rare, and authorities are investigating why anti-collision devices, which were fitted on to both planes, were not able to prevent the crash, which marks Brazil's worst ever aircraft disaster.
Investigators are said to believe that both planes should have been flying at different altitudes and that human error, by the Legacy jet’s pilots as well as air traffic controllers, resulted in the Legacy flying towards the jungle city of Manaus at 37,000ft rather than 36,000ft.
That is the altitude reserved for planes from Manaus to Brasília — the Boeing’s origin and destination, en route to Rio de Janeiro.
When air traffic control realised the problem it could not contact the Brazilian-made Legacy, which was in an area over the rainforest where controllers cannot contact planes by radio.
However, yesterday O Globo, a daily Brazilian newspaper, reported that Legacy disobeyed an order by the control tower to descend to a lower altitude just before coming into contact with the larger aircraft.
Investigators are also trying to determine why the corporate jet survived while the more powerful Boeing 737, operated by the Brazilian carrier Gol, crashed. One theory is that the Gol pilot may have swerved at the last minute to avoid the Legacy, sending his plane into a deadly dive.
Yesterday one of the passengers aboard the private jet described the terrifying moments after the plane was struck by the Boeing 737, clipping a wing and spinning the aircraft out of control.
Joe Sharkey, a New York Times journalist who was on a freelance assignment for the aviation magazine Business Jet Traveller, told of his extraordinary brush with death as the pilots began a desperate struggle to bring the plane under their command, and of the heartache after learning the fate of the passengers on the Boeing 737.
Writing in his newspaper, Mr Sharkey described the instant his flight went horribly wrong: "Without warning, I felt a terrific jolt and heard a loud bang, followed by an eerie silence, save for the hum of the engines. I lifted the shade. The sky was clear; the sun low in the sky. The rainforest went on for ever. But there, at the end of the wing, was a jagged ridge, perhaps a foot high, where the five-foot-tall winglet was supposed to be."
As he stared out of the window it became clear that the situation was worsening. Rivets started to come loose and the edge of the wing began to peel back. The plane started to lose speed.
The pilots, whose calm in the crisis was praised by Mr Sharkey, scanned maps and searched for a landing place in what is one of the world’s most isolated regions. "By now we all knew how bad this was. I wondered how badly ‘ditching’ — an optimistic term for crashing — was going to hurt. I thought of my family. And as our hopes sank with the sun, some of us jotted notes to spouses and loved ones and placed them in our wallets, hoping the notes would later be found."
Then the pilots spotted a Brazilian air force base hidden in the jungle and managed to make an emergency landing. Several hours after their own near-brush with death, jokes about the close call turned to tears as Mr Sharkey and his fellow travellers were told of the Boeing’s fatal crash.
Seeing the wing skin pealing would have concerned me.
If the flight is westbound, they would usually be assigned a even thousand altitude. If the flight is eastbound then it should be odd thousands. But in some circumstances deviations to this rule of thumb may be authorized.
Juast checked and Manaus is northwest of Brasilia so an even thousand altitude would have been appropriate.
Yupe, they are dead meat. (No pun intended.)
That would be very New York.
Let's see, the pilots of the Embraer Legacy 600 were directed to descend in a part of the airspace where radio communications with controllers was stated to be less than optimal. They may have never heard the directive/clearance, and the controllers may have assigned them the wrong FL from a previously assigned clearance...much more than meets the eye here, and it smells a bit like CYA on ATC's part to me at this time...
That is the altitude reserved for planes from Manaus to Brasília — the Boeing’s origin and destination, en route to Rio de Janeiro.
When air traffic control realised the problem it could not contact the Brazilian-made Legacy, which was in an area over the rainforest where controllers cannot contact planes by radio.
That's their version of the story, and they're stickin' to it!
So many half-truths--ATC assigns the altitudes, even if they're the "wrong" altitudes. It's not unusual to fly for considerable periods at the "wrong" altitudes by ATC instruction.
If they couldn't contact the Legacy, why didn't they contact the Boeing and give them another altitude? Are they going to use that same radio excuse? Is it routine for them to have opposite-direction traffic in RVSM without positive control (outrageous!)? Why didn't they assign HF radio frequencies to these aircraft if the areas were known to be spotty?
I suppose the best I can say about this accident is that the known facts don't support the media's conclusions, establishing blame on the Legacy crew. And the so-called "authorities" and "investigators" are irresponsible for speculating blame.
My apology to everyone.
It sends a hard coded setting so if some FUBAR pilot mis-sets altimiter, does not create problem.
You're a CFII, I take it. Thanks again.
Comm and Inst but not instructor rated. No patience.
:~)
You're a real pr**k, after me own heart!
U.S. pilots deny turning off transponder
|
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — The American pilots of an executive jet involved in a deadly high-altitude collision with a Boeing 737 have denied they turned off the transponder that signaled their location, authorities said Thursday.
Pilots Joseph Lepore, of Bay Shore, N.Y., and Jan Paladino, of Westhampton Beach, N.Y., repeatedly told investigators they never turned off the device that transmits a plane's location and believed that it was working just before the collision, said Denise Niederauer, a spokeswoman for the Mato Grosso do Sul State Public Safety Department. Brazilian authorities suggested a day earlier that the pilots may have turned off the device. |
[snip]
ExcelAire issued a statement Thursday night saying it "believes the results of the investigation will show the rumors and speculation about its pilots are false."
Three area congressmen reached out to diplomats Thursday seeking the release of two Long Island pilots whose passports were confiscated by Brazilian officials after their jet was involved in a mid-air collision over the Amazon jungle.
And the Ronkonkoma firm that employs the pilots urged against a rush to judgment by officials in Brazil, where emotions are running high over the crash that killed 155.
"I urge you to do all that you can to see that these Americans are allowed to return home immediately," Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) wrote Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after being contacted by ExcelAire of Long Island MacArthur Airport. King said he was concerned for the safety of Joseph Lepore, 42, of Bay Shore and Jan Paladino, 34, of Westhampton Beach.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) contacted the U.S. consul general in Brazil about the matter, too.
[snip]
Paladino was an American Airlines pilot furloughed after Sept. 11 and could be recalled.
Capt. Sam Mayer, chairman of The Allied Pilots Association, which represents American's pilots, said some members are refusing flights to Brazil because of the statements made by officials there.
Until the black box is recovered from the crashed Boeing, you don't *know* if both alarms weren't sounding.
The Brazillian thinking on this doesn't make sense. Those are decent people there. If they think the pilots did things contrary to regulation, that would be pilot error.
Pilot error results in stripping them of license. It's not a criminal matter unless things are done intentionally to cause an accident or to make money from being more dangerous. There is nothing these two did to warrant criminal referral.
They would have to have been drunk, both of them, to warrant this.
So far there has been no report of them being in jail. That's a plus.
I'm really beginning to wonder about our 'friends' to the south of us, but also feel that the hunt for sound bites to fuel the twenty-four hour news cycle is much to blame for this.
Ran across this article from ~2 weeks ago - Two U.S. Pilots Criticized in Brazil / Details of Probe Fuel Anger Over Deadly Midair Collision - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101910.html
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