Americas News
US pilots deny wrongdoing led to Brazilian plane crash
By DPA
Oct 6, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Rio de Janeiro - The two US pilots involved in the worst plane crash in Brazil's history rejected accusations of wrongdoing in connection with the accident, Brazilian media reported on Friday.

Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino - the pilot and copilot of a small Embraer Legacy and both US citizens - said that they did not turn off either the airplane's anti-collision or communications systems.

The pilots' claims have made the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) 'furious,' the daily Estado reported on its website.

A large Boeing 737-800 collided with a twin-engine private plane last week over the thick Amazon jungle in northern Brazil. The Boeing crashed, killing all 154 people on board, but the Brazilian-built Embraer Legacy managed to land safely at a nearby military airfield.

Preliminary investigations of the collision suggested the crash occurred because both planes were travelling towards each other at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,300 metres), when the Legacy should apparently have been at 36,000 feet.

However, it remains to be determined whether this was due to a mistake by Lepore, who may have ignored orders to fly at a lower altitude, or to an air traffic control tower failure.

The latest data from budget airline Gol, which operated the Boeing, showed 154 people were on board, not 155 as had previously been reported. Recovery efforts continue in the area of dense Amazon rainforest in the state of Mato Grosso where the crash happened.

The US company ExcelAire, which purchased from the Brazilian Embraer the Legacy involved in the accident, hired former Brazilian justice minister Jose Carlos Dias to represent the US pilots.

In an interview with the news website G1, Dias said Lepore and Paladino insist that 'they were flying at the right altitude and made several attempts at establishing contact with the control tower.'

He added that the pilots did not try flying tricks, as Brazilian media had speculated, and that they hardly felt the collision.

FAB investigators said the pilots were talking 'nonsense.'

Brazilian Federal Police on Thursday asked the country's courts to keep the two men in Brazil to answer questions about their role in the accident and face any forthcoming punishment. A probe has been opened to determine whether they are guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

'It is impossible that they could not make contact. The pilot has many options for communication. And if he had not succeeded he should have respected the approved flight plan even more,' a FAB spokesman said.

Air control technicians insist that it is 'more evident everyday' that the Legacy had turned off the transponder mechanism, the website Estadao wrote. Without the device the plane was virtually invisible to air traffic controllers.

The accusations are 'untruthful, absurd and insulting,' ExcelAire vicechairman Ralph Michieli was quoted as saying in the website Folha online. Other executives were quoted as saying that reports blaming the pilots are aimed at exonerating the Brazilian Aeronautical Company (Embraer), Gol and especially the country's air traffic control.

One week after the accident, another Boeing operated by Gol caused panic in Brazil on Friday. A plane rolled off the runway as it tried to land at the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo. No one was injured.