Joe Sharkey: Brazil

Aviation Know-It-All Crashes Plane Into a Pole

2008-01-06T17:43:00.000-05:00

One of the so-called aviation experts repeatedly invoked by those who loudly insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that the American pilots caused the Sept. 29, 2006 mid-air disaster over the Amazon is named George Sucupira.

Yesterday, Flyboy Sucupira flew his twin-engine plane into a power pole. He suffered only scrapes and bruises.

I am reliably assured that the American pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, were nowhere near the scene of the accident. However, Flyboy Sucupira and Brazilian authorities undoubtedly have another case against the American Imperialists, who once again are manifestly guilty of the charge that they "failed to ensure the safety of Brazil's skies."

With translation from Brazilian media accounts, and background by the esteemed Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo:

"Brazilian pilot George Sucupira, 67, who has repeatedly held that the largest part of the blame for the Gol 1907 tragedy lies with the American pilots of the Legacy jet, demonstrated his own piloting skills on Saturday by flying his twin engine plane into a high-voltage power pole.

Alone in the craft, he escaped with only scrapes and bruises. Some reports said that the aircraft was attempting an emergency landing on a highway when it collided with the power transmission line alongside the roadway.

Pilots who are not rated for instrument flight will sometimes navigate in conditions of low clouds by flying below them and following landmarks, such as highways.

Sucupira, president of the Association of Aircraft Pilots and Owners, has testified before Congress and in the press on the Gol 1907 crash, invariably blaming the pilots of the Legacy jet for the collision and the deaths of those aboard the Gol.

He has offered instant diagnoses of the TAM 3054 Airbus accident in July of 2007, and of the Learjet crash in November. While final reports have yet to be released in either of those crashes, current information disproves him in the Learjet case and is against him on the Airbus.

Sucupira, although reported to be "lucid" yesterday, has not yet publicly blamed anyone in connection with Saturday's accident.

Gol 1907 commentary at odds with facts Mr. Sucupira appeared on the Rede Record TV network on December 9, providing interpretation of a leaked copy of the Gol 1907's black box.

That tragedy, on September 29, 2006, occurred when Brazilian air traffic control put a Boeing 737-800 jetliner and a Legacy business jet on a collision course. All 154 aboard the Boeing died when it plunged into the Amazon forest. The Legacy's American pilots manged to land the damaged Brazilian-built jet at a nearby air base without injury to the seven aboard.

Investigations indicate that the Boeing lost seven meters of wing in the collision; Sucupira said "eight or nine" meters were lost. Widely published photos of the Gol wreckage show the wing upside down, with the landing gear extended.

The head of the safety bureau told a Senate committee that the landing gear lever in the cockpit was in the retracted position, and that the rotation of the craft as it spiraled downward and disintegrated deployed the wheels. Sucupira stated that the Boeing pilots lowered the landing gear.

Preliminary reports of the accident state that collision was between the left wings of the two aircraft. One clue given was that the Boeing's left engine showed fire damage, indicating that it was operating when damaged, while the right engine's condition showed it was not running, having halted during the craft's fall from 37,000 feet.

Sucupira said on the air that the Boeing pilots had turned off the engines to bring the plane down in a glide. If he offered an explanation as to why a plane with its engines off is more controllable, it was lost in editing.

The Record TV program includes a CGI animation of the crash which shows the Boeing's fuselage and wings intact as the nose reaches the trees. The widely scattered nature of the wreckage, major parts being as far as half a kilometer apart, and the moment at which the black box recording ceased, have caused investigators to conclude that the aircraft came apart above 7,000 feet in the air.

Sucupira, however, said that "I believe they died on impact with the soil", and that "Someone who was seated in the aircraft with their seat belt on reached the ground alive."

Most of the bodies were found with all clothing ripped off by the air during the long fall from the opened fuselage to the ground. Two Congressional committees and three police investigations have pointed to factors that contributed to the accident, including radio communications failures, incorrect air traffic control instructions, and software that misleads controllers.

The Legacy's transponder, necessary for the TCAS anticollision system to operate, was inoperative at the time of the collision. The reason for the transponder being off has still not been determined. The official report of the aviation safety investigation has still not been released.

George Sucupira, however, didn't wait for that report, nor rely on any of the others. He told TV Record that, "I know the Legacy pilots didn't want to cause this accident, they almost died, but they have total responsibility for what happened. I don't have the slightest doubt."

Sucupira testified on June 6 before a Brazilian Chamber of Deputies investigating committee, and the Chamber's news agency titled its report on his testimony, "Pilots' Association points out Americans' errors."

Sucupira affirmed that the Legacy's transponder could not be turned off accidentally, although the most recent news release on the official accident investigation affirms that the device was not turned off voluntarily.

That report also said Sucupira claimed the American pilots "contradicted all the regulations of aviation" and that they did not "respect the flight plan initially approved."

The committee's report, however, concluded that since the Legacy was flying in accordance with air traffic control orders, and that "considering the procedural rules, they have reason on their side."

When, in early November, a Learjet crashed shortly after takeoff in São Paulo, killing both pilots and six on the ground, Sucupuri offered an immediate diagnosis of mechanical problems, and then another, of adulterated fuel.

Safety investigators later attributed that accident to fuel not being balanced between the Learjet's right and left wing tanks, and the pilot having been distracted with administrative matters while taxiing, and then skipping routine pre-takeoff flight checks.

Brazil's worst air tragedy occurred in July of 2007 when an Airbus making TAM flight 3054 skidded off the runway of the downtown Congonhas airport, which has little or no escape area, and crashed into a building, killing 199 aboard the plane and on the ground.

Two weeks later, Sucupira warned the newspaper Valor Econômico of the "danger" of making interpretations from incomplete information, saying that "It's precipitous to blame the pilot."

He quickly advanced instead the suggestion that the blame might be Airbus's automatic control system, different from the more manual system of Boeing aircraft. "The pilot might have activated the throttle and the plane not have responded", was Sucupira's supposition.

Investigation of that accident is not yet completed, but pilot error is the leading hypothesis."

###

Case Closed. Now Call the Witnesses!

2007-11-28T21:02:00.000-05:00

You really didn't think we were going to climb up out of the Rabbit Hole now that the Brazilian military has concluded that the American pilots could not have inadvertently knocked the Legacy transponder off-line with a wayward foot or a laptop edge?

That just about eliminates the case, such as it was, against the pilots for the accident, which every single aviation authority in the world, the world beyond the Rabbit Hole, says should never, ever have been criminalized.

Hoooo no.

The federal court in Sinop, the godforsaken outpost in the Amazon where the trial has been under way for months, has denied a habeas corpus petition by the pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino.

Wot? And let them see the particulars of this mysterious case against them?! What do they think they are, innocent?

A judge also ruled that Lepore and Paladino -- who were detained without charge in Brazil for over two months after the crash, until the police finally cobbled together a charge hours after a judge ordered their passports returned so they could leave the country -- must appear before the court in Sinop. This was a denial of a petition by the pilots' attorneys that they testify before a Brazilian judge who would come to the U.S. and be free to pursue any line of questioning deemed necessary.

The new ruling says that "it is not reasonable that the judge who is holding the criminal trial[has] to go to another country for the pilots to be heard ... ."

A Brazilian lawyer for the pilots, Theodomiro Dias Neto, said that under applicable agreements between the U.S. and Brazil, the pilots have the right to be heard in the U.S.

"Based on the interpretation of the Code of Criminal Process and the Legal Assistance Treaty between Brazil and the United States, the American defendants have the right to be interrogated in their country of residence," he said.

There is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Brazil that could force the pilots to go to Brazil, where they have been continually scapegoated since the collision. That's because the crime alleged (whatever it is, now that the inadvertent kicking of the transponder has disappeared) is defined as "unintentional."

And, I might add from my own personal experience and from that of the pilots' during their two months of being detained without charge, there is no reason to accept the good faith of the Brazilian government. In my opinion, the fix has been in on this case since Day One, and the evidence of that is overwhelming. It would be insanity for the pilots to place themselves in Brazilian custody again.

(And to any of my excitable Brazilian correspondents now rushing to protest once more that the pilots were not "detained" during October through early December of 2006 because they were holed up in a nice hotel in Rio: save it. The fact is, they were not free to leave Brazil, and the threat of an angry mob, easily summoned by a simple phone call from informants planted round the clock in the lobby, prevented them from leaving the hotel.)

Still, a guilty verdict even in absentia would mark the pilots as international fugitives in Brazil and in other countries that do have applicable treaties with Brazil.

Meanwhile, nothing, nothing, has been done to fix the fundamental Brazilian air-traffic safety problems that actually caused the Sept. 29, 2006, crash and a subsequent one that killed 199 in Sao Paulo last July.

Meanwhile, the authorities are still chasing after air traffic controllers -- not for malfeasance in the crash, but for protests that followed the crash. In the months afterward, controllers -- who are military personnel -- staged work stoppages and other protests that caused major chaos in the air traffic system. They were protesting poor working conditions and poor, unsafe equipment, but they were also sending a message that controllers were not about to accept any blame for the Amazon disaster. Some of the worst protests occurred last March. More are expected as the Christmas and wearm-weather holidays approach.

From Zero Hora, translation by Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo:

FAB suspends controllers for March mutiny

Seven sergeants from Cindacta-1, in Brasilia, and 11 from Cindacta-2, in Curitiba, were suspended and seek to reverse the decision in the Courts before Christmas.

Seven career sergeants at Cindacta-1 (Brasilia) were discharged and another 11 at Cindacta-2 (Curitiba) were suspended by the Air Force due to the indictment for mutiny by the category on March 30.

Besides trying to reverse the situation in the courts, the controllers are asking for a response by the government before Christmas - when the Ministry of Defense will implant a plan to avoid airport chaos. Despite this, there is no threat of new protests.

"It's an act which seeks to undermine and disorganize the controllers who are on the job. Another resurgence is happening", said lawyer Roberto Sobral, who represents the controllers' association. "We need to have a response before Christmas", he added.

Of those discharged, one is detained for indiscipline and another belongs to the group involved in the Flight 1907 accident, according to the controllers' lawyers. They affirm that 10 controllers are in this situation and that they will appeal. The FAB said that there are seven and that the procedure of evaluation for reenlistment is standard, done annually for military personnel with less that 10 years of service (without stability).

In Curitiba, the controllers were suspended. For Sobral, the government is being "omiss" and "complacent" with a potential danger situation, because the new sergeants who will substitute them do not have sufficient training and experience.

On March 30, close to 200 professionals crossed their arms and, supported by controllers from several States, practically paralyzed the country's air space, causing delays at airports.

According to the Military Criminal Code, mutiny is a meeting of members of the military with the intention of acting against superior orders. It is considered a crime against authority. It differs from revolt because it involves unarmed military personnel.

What set off the controllers' strike on March 30 was the decision to transfer one of the category's leaders, Edleuzo Cavalcante, from Cindacta-1, in Brasilia, to a detachment in Santa Maria. the Air Force Commandant, Juniti Saito, decided to arrest 18 mutineers. With president Lula overseas and in the midst of a command crisis, the airport had a day of unprecedented delays.

***

Roberto Sobral, a lawyer for the controllers union, sent controllers the following letter, addressing the controllers' current push to remove themselves from military control and other matters:

"Dear Friends,

I have reasons to alert you against a possible strategy that is being adopted by the Air Force Command to destabilize the imminent process of demilitarization.

They have decided to make the persecutions more severe until they bring the controllers' category to lose control, who knows, an attempt at paralyzation.

If this happens the population, the press, the government, will all turn against us and we'll we'll be back to zero, losing all the gains we've already produced: the favorable report in the CPI, the adhesion of important personalities of the government itself, etc.

Demilitarization is inevitable. They know it, but they want to delay it as long as they can and this is where the danger lies. Delaying they hope to bring us to mistakes that will allow them to change course.

They are already ready to intervene in any paralyzation movement by us, or a work-to-rule operation. For this they count on a press that is omiss and irresponsible, without mentioning those that sell themselves, the good journalists won't even have space to defend us, in a situation of commotion.

Because of this, it is fundamental that all the leaderships recommend prudence and patience and that they be there on the day set for our meeting, where together we will establish the paths for the victory that is due us. With us are reason and the right.

We will know what to do for rationality to prevail. We are closer than ever to what we intend. I reemphasize the honor I enjoy in working for these great Brazilians that are our ATCs."

###

The Legacy Transponder: Case Closed?

2007-11-27T12:13:00.000-05:00

The Brazilian Air Force panel still investigating the Sept. 29, 2006 mid-air collision over the Amazon between a Gol 737 and a U.S.-owned Legacy business jet, in which 154 died, has issued a startling conclusion.

There are no indications that the Legacy's transponder was accidentally turned off with an unintentional slip of a pilot's toe off a badly designed footrest in the cockpit, or by one of the Legacy's pilots inadvertently jostling the device with his laptop.

There is, furthermore, no assertion, at least by anyone who isn't a delusional anti-American wack-job, that the pilots deliberately turned off the transponder, which would have been an act of sheer insanity on their part.

(Early on, the excitable former defense minister, Wonderful Waldir Pires, did of course assert just that. Someone showed him a picture of a wildly oscillating reading on a malfunctioning radar screen, which persuaded the poor old gentleman that the Americans obviously turned off the transponder so they could perform undetected aerial loop-d-loops in the Amazonian skies, evidently to "show off" the new airplane to the reporter on board, me -- though that inattentive reporter subsequently and inexplicably (unless he was part of the loop-d-loop coverup conspiracy!) failed to make note of said loop-d-loops in his stories about the crash. Wonderful Waldir has since departed for a much-needed retirement rest to coddle his loop-d-loops in peace.)

Anyway, I direct you once again to a detailed report filed last November by Excelaire, the owner of the Legacy, which argues that the Legacy's transponder had a history of problems and was not "factory fresh" before it was installed in the new Legacy. The .pdf of the report doesn't have page numbers, but the pertinent part is Section 6, titled "Production and Pre-Delivery Problems ..."

Neither Honeywell, the manufacturer of the transponder, nor Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer of the Legacy, has disputed that report, although neither has addressed it publicly, to my knowledge.

But the Air Force investigation moves us inexorably closer to the conclusion, argued here for over a year, that the collision occurred as a result of a series of things that went terribly wrong, starting with the fact that Brazilian air traffic control, understaffed and saddled with malfunctioning technology, made grave mistakes that put both aircraft on a fatal collision course at 37,000 feet that afternoon.

The transponder issue, and the American pilots' role in it, was secondary: A working transponder, with its tie-in to an aircraft anti-collision alarm, would have been the last safeguard that might (emphasize might) have prevented a collision that was already well set in motion through a series of errors and malfunctions on the ground.

Of course, the history of this sad case has shown that some authorities in Brazil, having made the grave mistake of rushing to criminalize this accident even before the bodies were brought out of the jungle, are absolutely determined to somehow pin blame on the Americans. Don't forget, the basic criminal charge against them is "failing to ensure the safety of Brazilian skies." That covers a whole lotta sky.

The two American pilots are still on trial, in absentia, on those criminal charges, which also stipulate that they were involuntarily responsible for whatever role in the accident they might be found guilty of.

Still, a guilty verdict carries prison sentences. Though the U.S. does not have an extradition agreement on a conviction on unintentional homicide, the pilots, if found guilty, would be considered international fugitives in many countries that do have applicable treaties with Brazil. For a pilot -- one of them still flies internationally -- that could lead to real trouble.

The Brazilian authorities have not yet addressed rampant safety problems in the operation of their military-run air traffic control system.

But as to the American pilots, who have been scapegoated in this tragedy since the day the seven of us fell from the sky onto that forlorn Amazon air strip: If the transponder failed because of manufacturing problems, I have only two words to say:

Case Closed.

Here is the text of the Air Force report, as translated by Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo:

Flight 1907 – Commission clarifies on transponder

Because of the release of information, on the part of organs of the domestic and international press, on the accidental interruption of transponder transmissions in the case of the Flight 1907 accident, which provoked the non-functioning of the anti-collision system, the Aeronautic Accident Commission of Investigation informs that:

1) Up to now, there are no indications that there occurred an intentional act on the part of the crew of aircraft prefix NX600L in the sense of interrupting the transponder's transmission (STAND BY mode) ;

2) Ergonometic studies, CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) data, and reconstructions demonstrate that:

- The interruption of transponder transmissions occurred during a period of silence in the cabin, lasting 1 minute and 43 seconds, while the pilots of aircraft NX600L performed flight planning calculations for the next stage of the trip, with the pilot on the right using a laptop;

- According to the report of the reenactment flight, there is no way that a laptop resting on the lap of the pilot on the right can touch the button on the RMU (Radio Management Unit) control screen twice, in less than 20 seconds, to put the transponder in STAND BY mode;

- There is no way to utilize the footrest during the flight with the seat in the normal piiloting position. It would be necessary to move it back. The movements of the seat positions are registered on the CVR and there is no register of movement (cabin noise) during the period in which the transponder ceases operation;

- The footrests have a protection which impedes a shoe sole from directly contacting the panel;

- If this occurs by an action by the pilot on the left, flexing and contorting his right foot, the buttons reached would be the first two, from top to bottom and on the left side of the RMU control panel, which have as their function the changing of the radio frequencies, and not the fourth button, which would permit changing the transponder mode (if it were touched twice in succession, in an interval of less than 20 seconds);

- Only the pilot on the left can, observing the description in the previous item, place his foot on the left side of the RMU);

- On the CVR, there is a commentary by the pilot on the left recommending not putting feet up in the cabin during the flight.

From all the evidence presented, the Commission reiterates that the conclusions aired by some organizations and press organs, domestic and international, on the use of the laptop or of the "footrest" on the flight in question, do not have any technical support in the work of the Aeronautic Accident Commission of Investigation, which is responsible for the procedure aimed at prevention.

Source: Aeronautic Accident Commission of Investigation / CENIPA

###

A Half-Flanagan

2007-11-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

You remember Tommy Flanagan (pronounced Fla-NAY-gan), Jon Lovitz’s memorable Saturday Night Live character who was incapable of uttering the truth?

Well, here we see a half-Flanagan, from an interview in the November issue of Airline Business magazine with Richard Lark, the chief financial officer at the Brazilian airline Gol.

(A Gol 737, you will also remember, went down in the Amazon with 154 dead on Sept. 29, 2006, after colliding with a business jet while both aircraft were flying head-on at 37,000 feet under Brazilian air traffic control instructions.)

Said Lark, speaking of the crisis in Brazilian aviation:

“What is happening in Brazil are attempts to find the guilty parties, to initiate criminal proceedings rather than concentrating on discovering the cause of the accident. Once you introduce a blame culture people will start to withhold information. This situation creates a disincentive to find the truth. We have the best safety system along with Canada and the U.S.A., but this now is being questioned, with emotion taking over from rational thought.”

True Fact: “...What is happening in Brazil are attempts to find the guilty parties, to initiate criminal proceedings rather than concentrating on discovering the cause of the accident. Once you introduce a blame culture people will start to withhold information. This situation creates a disincentive to find the truth.”

(An assertion that, by the way, has been made repeatedly in this space for over a year).

Whopper: "... We have the best safety system along with Canada and the U.S.A., but this now is being questioned, with emotion taking over from rational thought.”

Well, let's apply some rational thought to that statement. Let’s see, 154 died in the still-inexplicable Amazon accident (to which Gol, it should be noted, has not yet addressed itself publicly, while the American pilots of the business jet and four low-ranking air traffic controllers are on criminal trial.)

Then in July, another 199 died when a Brazilian Tam airliner crashed at notoriously unsafe Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo.

Then last Sunday, eight people died when a business jet taking off from another airport situated in a crowded urban area of Sao Paulo crashed into a neighborhood – just days after three separate helicopter crashes killed another three people.

“We have the best safety system …”

Yeah, that's the ticket!

###

Another Fatal Air Crash in Brazil

2007-11-04T19:03:00.000-05:00

Top: Crash site in Sao Paulo, from Estado de S. Paulo.

Bottom: From Folha Online, showing location of the accident near Campo de Marte airport in Sao Paulo.

There was another disaster today in Brazil’s notoriously unsafe aviation system, while authorities do nothing to address fundamental safety issues.

At least eight people were killed when a Learjet 35 crashed into a Sao Paulo neighborhood after taking off from Campo de Marte airport, the main general aviation airport. The jet, bound for Rio, was operated by an air-taxi company.

Initial reports were that the pilot, co-pilot and six people on the ground were killed.

It was the fourth aviation crash in a week. In three separate helicopters crashes last week, three people were killed and five were injured. In traffic-snarled Sao Paulo, helicopters are often used for routine transport.

The first accident happened Thursday in a suburb of Sao Paulo, where a helicopter carrying four people crashed in a street. A woman and a child were killed and the pilot died later.

About twenty minutes later, another helicopter crashed in another suburb. Its two passengers were not injured.

Two hours later, a third helicopter chopper crashed in Riberao Preto, about 185 miles from Sao Paulo. The three people on the helicopter are in critical condition.

Last July, a Tam Airbus 320 commercial airliner crashed at Sao Paulo’s overcrowded Congonhas Airport, killing 199. Ten months before that, a Brazilian Gol Airlines 737 and an American Legacy 600 business jet collided over the Amazon, killing 154.

Since the Amazon collision 13 months ago, Brazilian authorities have steadfastly maintained that the country’s aviation system is safe, even though international aviation authorities have said it is not.

In the Gol-Legacy crash, Brazilian military and police authorities blamed the two American pilots, who are now being tried in absentia on criminal charges, along with four low-ranking controllers in Brazil’s air-traffic-control system, which is operated by the military. In that crash, both planes were flying on a collision course at 37,000 feet under orders from air traffic control.

###

Brazil's Skies: 'If You Had Courage and An Airplane, You Had an Airline'

2007-11-01T11:06:00.000-04:00

Our correspondent Richard Pedicini recently attended a seminar on air safety in Brazil. Here is his report:

In Northeast Brazil, aviation workers flock to flight safety seminar

In the Brazilian Northeast, unlike the country as a whole, air taxis are the category of aviation that suffers the most accidents. The "make-do" is dangerous in airplane maintenance. And the improvement of aircraft leaves the human factor ever more prevalent in accidents.

Those are among the lessons of the seminar on flight safety that packed the Infraero auditorium at the Fortaleza airport last Friday night and Saturday morning.

"We are at an extremely delicate moment in Brazilian aviation", said Lieutenant-Colonel Aviator João Carlos Beiniek, at the opening of the event. "There has never been so much said about the safety of flight."

He sees the current moment of chaos in Brazilian civil aviation as part of a transition from one stable situation to another. He cited previous moments in the history of Brazilian aviation. In the 1950s, there were 300 cities with scheduled commercial service. "But there was no regulation. If you had courage and an airplane, you had an airline."

When president Jânio Quadros canceled the aviation fuel subsidy in 1961, only four airlines survived. In the 1970s came the era of regional air transport companies, but only one of the five, TAM, continues operating today.

Col. Beiniek sees a big future for Brazilian aviation, with the potential of reaching a passenger public four times larger than at present. "The United States has 222,000 airplanes, and there's no one between them and Brazil, with its 11,000 aircraft."

Accident prevention

Organized by Seripa II - the Regional Service for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautic Accidents, created this year - the seminary attracted more than 120 people from Fortaleza and cities across the Brazilian Northeast. The audience included pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, and students and others interested in aviation.

The Fortaleza seminar was the first undertaken by the Seripa, and had the declared purpose of spreading the SIPAER doctrine . Elements emphasized were that the investigation of an aeronautic accident has as its only and exclusive purpose the search for the contributing factors of each accident to prevent future recurrences, and also that accidents are the result not of a single cause, but of a series of factors.

Maintenane Questions

The "make-do" was pointed out as one of the major causes of accidents in small airplanes, as in the case of the pilot who added a homemake radiator to the engine block. The axle froze and the plane crashed, killing the inventor.

"Airplane maintenance has nothing to do with automobile maintenance", said Seripa's Leitenant Brito. An airplane, he said, is made with a minimum safety coefficient, because it needs to be light in order to fly. "While an airplane is large, it's fragile."

In accidents caused by maintenance, as in those that happen because of errors made in the air, there is also a chain of factors that culminate in an accident. An airplane is moved during maintenance, there's a change of shifts, it's not written down that tasks were not completed, a final inspection is made from the ground rather than by climbing a ladder, and a airplane takes off lacking half the screws that hold on a vital part. And fourteen people die in the crash.

Bird Psychology

Aircraft crews were the principal contributing factor in 70% to 75% of aeronautic accidents in the decade from 1985 to 1995, and the human factor may represent 90% of accidents in this new century. However, according to ICAO statistics, three out of every four accidents involve errors by people who are qualified and healthy, said Dr. Maria da Conceição Pereira Sougey, Seripa psychologist.

Dr. Pereira Sougey spoke of the importance of identifying psychological factors in accidents, and the importance of this in flight safety. She explained that an injured bird will try to continue flying, because air is his element. "But being that man is not made to fly, when he runs into a problem, his instinct is to try to land. Then, he loses the capacity to control the machine, that needs to keep flying."

The distinction between an error and a violation was brought out by the psychologist, who noted that just in the state of Bahia, this year, three accidents have happened because landing gear wasn't lowered. A simple error.

Some failures she qualified as "active failures", committed on the work floor, by those who work directly with the system. Others, "passive failures", happen at the management level, when weak points are not identified and defenses against errors are either absent or are, with time, neglected.

Vultures on the Runway

The human factors that cause accident aren't always employed in aviation. One important cause of accidents is collisions with birds. A news clip was shown which discovered the cause of a problem with vultures, which endangered planes landing at the Recife airport. An illegal slaughterhouse operated in the neighborhood, and the owner proudly showed the news crew that he washed the slaughterhouse every week, throwing the scraps of animals right at the head of the runway, where vultures leaned to wait in expectation. His understanding of the danger he was creating was at the same level as his notions of hygiene.

The Flight of Geese

Birds were also used to illustrate by Commandante Ilha, who used the flight of geese as an example of leadership. "The flight in 'V' diminishes air resistance . A goose flying alone looses up to 71% of its performance. " People, like geese, gain by working as a team.

Ilha emphasized communication as the most basic factor in CRM, and the importance of non-verbal communication, such as a pilot signaling with two thumbs up, or twirling his fingers to signal a mechanic to make the motor turn. One danger to which he alerted is the "power distance", which leaves subordinates with fear of their bosses, and unwilling to communicate problems.

'All Paths Lead to Sao Paulo'

Cel. Beiniek, besides speaking of Brazilian aviation's potential for growth, spoke of the obstacles at this moment. "It is a long path, and investment is the key." He hopes that Brazil will soon reach a moment where more is spent on the "air" side, such as runways and navigation aids.

Many airports in Brazil have only one or two runways. "If there's only one runway, and it's closed for maintenance, the airport is closed." An airport the size of Fortaleza's would have, in the United States, from three to five runways.

Another problem is that, in the flight network, "All paths leads to São Paulo." Brazil needs to have more airports in the future, with more widely distributed flights.

He also says that in as little as one year there may be a shortage of pilots in Brazil. "Without flight clubs, there are no pilots".

###

The Morning News: A Flawed Aviation System? Oh-My-God!

2007-10-26T10:49:00.001-04:00

Thirteen months ago, when I lurched home after the Brazilian aviation system failed in its attempt to kill me over the Amazon (though succeeded in killing 154 other poor souls), I made a comment on CNN that pilots and other experts considered Brazil's skies unsafe.

Notoriously poor conditions throughout air-traffic control, coupled with internationally known poor conditions in radio and radar coverage, especially over the vast Amazon, meant that pilots flew carefully over Brazil.

I mean, this was not in dispute among international pilots.

But when I uttered those few sentences in a radio interview, you'd have thought I said that Alberto Santos-Dumont snatched the Lindbergh baby.

Unless you read the comments from Brazil on this blog starting last October (when I had to temporarily shut down operations because the reaction was frankly scaring my family) you simply would not believe the vitriol that poured in, including numerous death threats. Plus, I was being routinely denounced by politicians in Brasilia -- including the estimable, since-fired Defense Minister Wonderful Waldir Pires -- as a hateful, cold-blooded American imperialist killer for merely pointing out the obvious.

And 13 months later, with the death toll now at 353 in two air disasters in Brazil, nothing has been done by the Brazilian authorities to address the systemic problems in Brazil's air space. That is perhaps because they have been so busy pointing fingers of blame.

Anyway, here's an interesting column from today's news in Brazil. Note the quote from one Brazilian air traffic controller saying that controllers had been warning for a long time about the air-traffic-co9ntrol communications "black hole" -- in the very region where the Sept. 29, 2006 mid-air collision occurred. Translation, as usual, by our intrepid correspondent Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo:

"Valor Econômico

Flipperama of Death

Claudia Safatle

Now 93 days in the role of minister of Defense, Nelson Jobim simply ignores the demands of air traffic controllers, who for more than a year, since soon after the Gol accident on September 29, 2006, have gone public to expose a crisis of which society did not have the slightest idea.

It was after the collision of the Gol Boeing with the Legacy jet, which resulted in the deaths of 154 passengers that, placed in the center of the accident's causes, the controllers exposed their dissatisfaction with working conditions and opened a season of chaos at the country's airports, culminating in the mutiny in March of this year.

Today, representatives of the controllers protocoled at the Ministry of Defense their third request for an audience with the minister. The first two got no response.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva doesn't want to know about the existence of this problem and also isn't considering receiving them.

There are close to 2,700 controllers entrusted with the control of civil aviation traffic, 80% of these being military (sergeants and sub-officials) and the other 20% being civil service system workers and workers under the ordinary labor laws. All of them work under the command of the Air Force and demand, as an initial step toward the solution of all the remaining differences, the demilitarization of air traffic control.

Currently, besides Brazil, the military controls civil aviation traffic only in Paraguay and Uganda. One is not dealing with mere stubborn dislike for the model, the controllers argue. For them, militarization is at the heart of the enormous management difficulties for structural reasons.

"Dealing with the military is slow. We had already been complaining for three years about the 'black hole' in the Serra do Cachimbo range (where the collision between the Gol Boeing and the American jet occurred) and nothing had been done. But civil aviation is dynamic, it needs rapid responses", one operator evaluated.

After the March mutiny, Lula gave the Air Force commandant, Juniti Saito, carte blanche to resolve the controllers' case.

The commandant began to act to solve the contentions based on the principles of hierarchy and disciple which guide military action. He imposed a Law of Silence, which created a climate of apparent normality, and has been punishing with arrest any misstep of those under his command, suspended all those who were union leaders to eliminate what is called in the area "negative leadership" and at the Integrated Center for Air Defense and Air Traffic Control 1 (Cindacta I), all the higher level employees were removed from management functions and substituted by military men who do not have, necessarily, the same knowledge and experience.

Saito tamed the movement, producing, as a counterpoint, a climate of enormous tension among the controllers, who continue to work to guarantee the safety of passengers basically under the same conditions that they denounced as improper last year.

"This year there were already five cases of AVC - cerebral vascular accidents - among controllers after the mutiny", recounts an experienced worker. Besides the reformulation of salaries and the creation of a single career path for the three cases (military, civil service, and ordinary labor laws), the controllers insist on demanding the demilitarization of the sector as a solution for the grave management problems that they've identified.

As an example, several controllers cite the adoption of a software program developed by the Atech company which the controllers condemn for more than five years as not being trustworthy. "The target, at times, disappears or the software provided the wrong position", an operator observed. At the Air Force Command, however, there's a refusal to discuss the question.

The Gol tragedy in 2006, followed by the disaster with the TAM Airbus A320 on July 17 and two Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry (CPIs), show an aviation crisis without precedents.

The country discovered that air traffic control has very grave flaws, that the routes were dangerously concentrated on a airport in the middle of the city of São Paulo, that the organs charged with managing the sector did not function, among various other evils.

The government filed away the report produced by an interministerial working group created last year to propose solutions. Suggestions there included the creation of a civilian body linked to the Ministry of Defense, to deal with civil aviation; the maintenance of a shared system of monitoring air space; reformulation of the controllers' career path and salaries; new hires; and an independent audit to evaluate the conditions and needs of the system not only in personnel but also in infrastructure and technological updating.

For the air traffic controllers' movement, besides an audience with Jobim, it's worth opening negotiations with the Secretariat of Human Resources of the Ministry of Planning to correct salary distortions - a civilian controller who leaves São José dos Campos in December to work for the Cindactas will begin with a monthly salary only R$ 100,00 less than that of controllers with 30 years of experience.

And they will continue with the work of persuasion behind the scenes, with the staff of the ministry of Defense. On the government's side, the worst that Jobim could do is to believe piously in the declaration he made the day before yesterday, in Rio, when he said that of the three pillars of the sector, punctuality, regularity, and safety, only the last is already settled. On this theme, there is no room for plays of words nor for volunteerism. Really, there's no room for any kind of game.

###

The Morning News: Fingerpointing Fandango (Cont'd).

2007-10-25T10:42:00.000-04:00

No, they haven't fixed anything in the faulty aviation system in Brazil since the disaster over the Amazon just over a year ago (unless you count drastically reducing the number of flights allowed to use Sao Paulo's dangerous Congonhas airport after the July air crash disaster there).

They're too busy pointing fingers, as they have been now for over for a year. Undoubtedly, corruption is rife in the aviation system. But financial corruption had nothing directly to do with why two aircraft were placed on a collision course at 37,000 feet over the Amazon on Sept. 29, 2006, resulting in 154 deaths. And note, in the second item, that action has been taken against an air traffic controller -- for talking to the media.

Some fresh excerpts from the news, translation as usual courtesy of Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo:

"Via FAB clipping

O Estado de S. Paulo

Controller is under arrest for giving interview

The director of mobilization of the Brazilian Association of Air Traffic Controllers (ABCTA), sergeant Edleuzo Cavalcante, is since yesterday serving in Brasila the eight days of administrative jailing that he received from his heirarchical superiors, for having given an interview, in which he criticized the FAB Command, without authorization from his boss. During the day the sergeant works normally and at night stays at the barracks of the 6th Regional Air Command.

xxx

Via Aeroclipping

O GloboVoting of Aviation Blackout CPI report is put off Report referee asks for accusation of 23 people and accuses ex-president of Infraero of heading gang

BRASILIA -- The final report of the Senate Aviation Blackout CPI [my note: that's one of a handful of investigative committees] accuses the ex-president of Infraero, congressman Carlos Wilson (PT-PE), of commanding a "gang" set up in the state-owned firm, accused of diverting close to R$500 million in construction work at 11 airports. The voting of the report, authored by senator Demóstenes Torres (DEM-GO), was put off until Tuesday, after the PT party congressman Jogo Pedro (AM) asked for time to read the report, at the government's direction.

With this, the Planalto [presidential palace] gained time to lay out a strategy to remove from the document the names of directors of Infraero accused of fraud. Despite saying that the supposed scheme of corruptions crosses party lines, the report harshly attacks the management of [now congressman Carlos] Wilson. The ex-president responded strongly accusing Demóstenes of being "long known for the practice of talking loud". The senator talked back, ironically: "(Carlos Wilson) is the St. George of a brothel, seeing everything and doing nothing."

The report recommends the accusation of 23 people, among them Wilson and National Civil Aviation Agency ex-director Denise Abreu. And asks for the Federal Police to trace the bank accounts of 18 contractors and consortiums supposedly benefited by the [airport construction] bids. Though them, almost R$1 billion flowed, the CPI points out.

The document accused the state firm's ex-director of engineering, Eurico José Bernardo Loyo, of "being the patron and intermediary of private interests along with the administration of the Infraero firm."

xxxx

Folha de S. Paulo

Marcelo Neves: Anachronistic Militarism

I only found five countries, besides Brazil, which maintain total control of air traffic under the reponsibility of the military

THE RECENT crisis in the aviation sector may throw light on the question of the linking of civil aviation, especially air traffic control, to the Air Force. The constitutional consistency and the social adequacy of militarization of this highly globalized sector are questioned.

In relation to the consitutional consistency, it's verified that, as per Article 142 of the Constitution, the Armed Forces "are destined to the defense of the Country, the guarantee of the constitutional Powers and, for initiative of any of them, of law and order".

Within the orientation of the strict delimitation of the attributions of the Armed Forces in relation to the redemocratization set down in the 1988 Federal Contitution, the amplification of its functions on the level of infraconstitutional legislation is debatable.

However, Brazilian legislation led the the hypertrophy of the Armed Forces by means of militarization of a civilian sector in prejudice to the constitutional model of strict delimitization of its functions.

More problematic still is the question relative to the capacity of one of the Armed Forces, the Air Force, to respond to the demands of civil aviation in a complex global society.

In this particular, it's relevant to consider the solution of the problem in comparative law. I only found five countries, besides Brazil, that maintain total control of air traffic under the responsibility of the military: Eritreia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uruguay, and in transition to demilitarization, Argentina.

Among the developed countries in Western Europe and North America, civil aviation is out of the field of competence of the military sector. Some examples are illustrative.

In the United States, the greatest military and warlike power, the cornerstone of the regulation of civil aviation was set in 1926, when the sector was subordinated to the Department of Commerce. In 1958 was created, in this department's sphere, the Federal Aviation Agency, which had its name changed to Federal Aviation Administration in 1967, when it was linked to the Department of Transportation.

At no time, in the USA, a country which supervalues "national defense," were the Armed Forces given the role of regulating of operating civil aviation, including air traffic control, except for interference in time of war. ..."

###

Aviator Day in Brazil

2007-10-23T17:45:00.000-04:00

That's Santos Dumont, of Brazil, and some people believe, though it's in dispute, that he and not the Wright Brothers of America is the founder of modern aviation. He is at least one of early powered flight's great characters. Certainly, unlike the secretive, workmanlike Wright Brothers, Dumont was among the first to luxuriate publicly in the sheer joy of powered, manned flight.

{On the other hand, he really didn't live all that much time in Brazil, which had little to do with his accomplishments. See a reader's note at the bottom.}

No need to impose any further irony on the current situation. It's Aviator Day in Brazil, and attention should be paid. Thus this from the Jornal do Brazil, translation from the Portuguese as usual by Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo. But do note the slightly defensive undercurrent with the side current of xenophobia. Sounds familiar to me:

"Dahas C. Zarur

There is no doubt on Santos Dumont's flight. It was undertaken on October 23, 1906 under the eyes of an immense crowd and the French Air Club, under the presidency of Ernesto Achdeacon, signed a historic document, giving to the Brazilian aviator priority as the first human to fly in a heavier than air craft, impelled by a motor - an achievement never reached in the long history of Mankind.

Any sort of propaganda is useless that has the objective of usurping the glory of Santos Dumont acclaimed by kings and by the people on dismounting from his 14 Bis, formed by a set of Hargrave-type kite cells, made of a a bamboo screen, with a 50 hp motor. Santos Dumont flew in the eyes of Paris, then the capital of the world, and covered 200 meters in 21 seconds, corresponding to a velocity of 41km/h. Citizen of the world, on returning to Brazil, in a visit to his family, singer Eduardo Alves saluted him: "Europe bows to Brazil and shouted congratulations in tender tones; there shines in the sky one more star. Santos Dumont appeared."

Nothing will destroy the glory of that Brazilian who, tired of being news, stopped flying in 1910, dedicating himself to literature. He traveled the world, spreading the sensations and risks of being an aviator, his hard life, the hard tests he was submitted to (painful and difficult tests) until he made his first flight, and from this after flying without knowing if he would reach his destination, if they would return to their homes, to their families, hours and hours, days and days without setting foot on earth. That is what happened. Man could fly like the birds. Today, distances have been made shorter, thanks to the airplane and the expertise, the dexterity of aviators. A trip that was made in months, can be realized in hours. Today the skies are full to gigantic aircraft, carrying hundreds of people, on comfortable and secure voyages to the most distant points of the universe, with highly qualified personnel.

Santos Dumont, in 1904, wrote "Dans l'air" translated by Miranda Bastos, with the title "My Balloons" ["Meus Balões " is the Portuguese].

"My Balloons" was carefully written. In it, Santos Dumont tells of his infancy and his life as an argonaut before inventing the airplane. He had no greater concern than in describing the emotions of the Deutsch Prize - which he won on October 13, 1901, when in a dirigible balloon he circled he circled the Eiffel Tower and returned to Saint Cloud within the rigorous time of 30 minutes. It was at this moment that pacifist leader Jean Jaurés wrote:"Today were are all in the shadow on one man."Tired of being in headlines, he stopped flying in 1910, after playing in the skies of Paris with his minuscule Demoiselle. He dove deep into literature and wrote a series of articles for the principal newspaper of France and the United States. He traveled the world and stopped again in Brazil, going to Petrópolis, where he would write his third book, " What I saw and what we will see", in whose pages already appear symptoms of a disturbed mind.

The title "The mechanical man" was published, whose originals he locked in his office, not delivering the work to his publishers. Diplomat Aluísio Napoleão, however, revealed stretches of the work, in which Santos Dumont, in contrast to the previous book, showed full rational capacity when he wrote: "It was, I can say, (said about 1929), a very painful trial for me to watch, after my work on the dirigibles and heavier than air aircraft a few years earlier, the ingratitude of those who covered me with laurels years earlier. I feel embarrassed on having to speak of myself - "I" is odious to me - in order to defend these witnesses and this consecration that sometimes seems to have been forgotten".

"There is in this more a proof of my gratitude, than a claim. This last would be, alas, useless, because history will not be written except with the passage of time and with facts and documents. Some years pass and everything is forgotten".

The millions of dollars spent in publicity, with the objective of destroying the glory of Santos Dumont in favor of the Wright Brothers, did not have the least result. Alberto Santos Dumont, however, will eternally have the primacy of flight. Destiny wanted him to see an aerial combat in Santos, São Paulo, in 1932, among legalist and rebel airplanes, during the Constitutionalist Revolution, with the apparatuses falling into the sea. Commenting to a relative who was with him, he said:"It was not for this that I invented the airplane!"

No longer was Santos Dumont feted by kings and princes. His happiness was to walk along the beach, with a group of children. Santos Dumont lies under an enormous Icarus, in São João Batista Cemetery, in Rio de Janeiro, a copy of the Saint Cloud monument, a long ways from the mausoleum of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. His immortality is in the skies full of aircraft and spaceships. ... "

{On the other hand, a reader adds:}

Hi, Joe!

As you are well aware, Santos Dumont did invent AN airplane. He did not invent THE airplane. Many cobbled together flying machines about the time that the Wright Brothers ENGINEERED, thus invented the first airplane and flew it successfully prior to Dumont and others. The Wright flights after 1903 developed into more and more capable machines. Dumont faded after his first flight a year at least after the Wrights.

Santos Dumont was a citizen of Brazil, but resided in France. He had access to French facilities and materials, likely not available in Brazil then. Other than producing Dumont, Brazil had little to do with it. The talented Dumont accomplished many things and deserves credit for them. However, it seems to me that he used his common sense, but not thorough engineering systematic analysis and study leading flight as did the Wrights. The aviation industry grew due to the efforts of the Wrights and Glen Curtiss as did nothing else. Of course, they were both citizens and residents of the United States.

I check your blog every day for the latest down South. Sometimes Brazzil.com, too. The current attitude of Brazil reflects poorly on Dumont.
Ralph M.

###

Hey, Here's an Idea: Stop Blaming People and Fix Your Busted Aviation System Before Somebody Else Gets Hurt

2007-10-11T12:53:00.000-04:00

More than 350 dead in a year, and what have Brazil's government and Air Force done to address manifest major problems in its aviation system, which has been called flat-out "unsafe" by international aviation agencies? Nothing, actually. Rather than taking the effort to make their skies safe, thereby accepting responsibility, they just keep blaming individuals, which is ever so much easier. Translation by Richard Pedicini:

Air traffic controllers' leader is charged
October 9, 2007 – 13:15

The Air Force Command has asked for the administrative jailing of the vice-president of the Brazilian Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Associations (Febracta), Moisés Gomes de Almeida. According to an article published this Tuesday by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, the military accuses Almeida of having planned the mutiny which paralyzed air traffic in the country starting on March 30 of this year.

The accusations that weigh against Almeida – of incitement and insubordination – are based on messages left by him on the relationship site Orkut in the month of August. There, the vice-president of Febracta urged the category to make donations for the payment of a legal opinion requested from jurist Marcelo Neves on air traffic control in several countries.

In the text, Almeida made veiled criticisms of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB). The Air Force was not, however, cited directly. When the content of the posts reached the knowledge of the Air Force command, it was decided to begin an administrative inquiry.

###

Unsafe Skies? Why, I Oughta....

2007-10-07T04:09:00.000-04:00

How DARE They Say These Skies Are Unsafe!

…Uh, because more than 350 people died in two separate horrendous accidents in Brazil in the last year, and that’s not counting the close calls. Uh, because the Brazilian military (which runs air traffic control) has toiled endlessly to assign blame to the American pilots in the Sept. 29 accident (no one lived through the July accident to get blamed. Uh, because Brazilian air traffic controllers are underpaid, unhappy, poorly trained and in many cases even unable to respond to or speak English, the lingua franca of aviation the world over.

Every significant international aviation and pilots and even air traffic controllers associations have condemned Brazil's atrocious performance, including its extremely unwise politicization and criminalization of accidents.

And now we again have the spectacle of Brazilian military authorities again going into their familiar defensive crouch. The latest salvo at Brazil comes from the international association of

First, this from today’s Brazzil Magazine (www.brazzil.com), whixh is published in English. Evidently, Wolderful Waldir Pires – the Colonel Blimp-like defense minister who insisted the American pilots were doing loop d loops when the crash occurred, has been replaced by more of the same. Where do they GET these officers! (Oh, I forgot, the country was a military dictatorship for about 25 years):

Brazil Outraged by Suggestion that New Air Accident Is Matter of Time

Sunday, 07 October 2007

Brazzil Magazine

Brazil Outraged by Suggestion that New Air Accident Is Matter of Time

Written by Newsroom

Friday, 05 October 2007

The head of an international air traffic controllers organization who said that it was only "a matter of time" before there was a new air disaster in Brazil was rebuffed by Brazilian Defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, Brazil's top aviation official.

In a interview to Brazil's official government news agency, Radiobrás, Minister Jobim defended Brazil's air traffic control system and said comments that another air accident was inevitable were politically motivated.

"This is a game within the corporation, in other words, they're playing politics. We can't excuse this type of manifestation," Jobim told Radiobrás.

Jobim's remarks came in response to comments Marc Baumgartner, president of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers made to the BBC Brazil Wednesday at a seminar in the United States.

According to BBC Brazil, Baumgartner said "it's a question of time before a new air accident happens again in Brazil."

Baumgartner also harshly criticized the Brazilian Air Force, which oversees the nation's air traffic control system, for trying to punish the controllers involved in the Sept. 29, 2006 crash of a Boeing 737 operated by Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA over the Amazon, killing all 154 people aboard.

"The Brazilian Air Force invested lots of energy to arrest and prosecute its own workers but none to fix its (air traffic control) system," Baumgartner was quoted by the O Globo news agency.

The September 29 crash was Brazil's worst air disaster until July, when a TAM Linhas Aereas SA Airbus crashed into a warehouse in São Paulo killing 199 people. The second accident had wide ranging political repercussions, with many accusing the government of failing to act on problems exposed by the Gol crash.

Following the accident President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sacked Defense Minister, Waldir Pires, and named Jobim who was given full support to implement all reforms he considered necessary to improve the Brazilian air system.

One of the steps taken was to redistribute operations from Brazil's busiest air terminal Congonhas in São Paulo to other airports and drastically cutting flight delays and cancellations. Jobim is also considering the possibility of handing air traffic control from the Air Force to civilians.

However Jobim admits that to a certain extent the "feeling of lack of safely and chaos persists" and has repeatedly requested for support from travelers.

Earlier this week, a military court declined to indict five Brazilian air traffic controllers in connection with the Gol crash. Military prosecutors want to try four of the controllers on charges of breaking regulations, and the other one faces charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Four of the controllers and two American pilots who were aboard and executive jet that collided with the 737 still face charges in a civilian criminal court in connection with the accident.

A Congressional commission investigating air chaos in Brazil just issued its final report. The report excluded a request to indict four air traffic controllers in connection with the Gol crash but supported the indictment of American pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino.

FROM THE READERS COMMENTS SECTION:

That is Brazil excluding to indict the Brazilians at the source of the plane crash, but wishing to indict innocent foreign pilots !!!!!!

Ohhhh and a cheap but good safety idea for your airports :

DONT PUT YOUR FUEL RESERVES TANKS.....AT THE END OF A LANDING STRIP !!!!

Even idiots know this, but Brazilians are more idiots...than idiots !

Brazil is an arachaïc and medieval country.

Proof of it is that you still harvest most of your sugarcane as you did....200 years ago, when Australia has mechanized 100 % of their sugarcane harvests.....over 25 years ago !

Brazil is simply a shame to humanity, a shame to justice and social inequality !

Are you not ranked within the WORST 10......on this planet ?

YESSSSSS.....you are !

Viva Bin Lula and his 4000 thieves !

Ch.c did you take your meds today?

written by Shelly, 2007-10-06 21:03:41

Ch.c "but Brazilians are more idiots...than idiots !" Do I need to take the spoon off your ass? Or you forgot to take your meds today? You generalize, should I say all Swiss citizens have blood in their hands? Dirty money from the sale of drugs, kidnapping, corruption, flows in your banking system with no questions asked, dear, should I generalize it too?

Why would the head of a air traffic controller trade association play politics - more annoying fake bravado by a Brazilian politician/ government figure

written by ADD, 2007-10-06 23:34:49

I have lived in Rio for 4 years married into a good Brasilian family.

The Brasilian constitution needs to be overhauled. One of the most flagrant flaws is the immunity enjoyed by elected officials from serious punishment for stealing from public coffers...to the extent of not having to return the stolen money or forfeit future positions or pensions. There is absolutely no real punishment if a crooked politician gets caught. They all posture acting highly insulted when someone demonstrates they are crooks or they are incompetent or mendacious or all of the above . Its absurd.

Why would the head of an international air traffic controller trade association play politics? Its absurd. I'd be inclined to believe that Mr.Baumgartner sees problems with the Brasilian Air Traffic Control functions.

...

Once again Brazilians like you, just as usual, point their fingers elsewhere instead of at themselves. Just the same as for the plane crash when you want to indict the innocent foreign pilots but not those Brazilians at the source of the tragedy.

As to bloods, you forget that due to the voluntary mess in your society created by your politicians and governments, Brazil is one of the most violent country.....on this planet.

Did you know that 50 % of youths deaths in Brazil, aged 15-24, is due to violent deaths ?

Is this how Brazil controls its population growth ?

Yessssss Brazilians are more idiots than the average idiots.

But you truly EXCEL in cheating, lying and hiding !

"Baumgartner is a Swiss"

Who is this Junkie BUM GARTNER? Is he from Geneva? Do you know him personally? He sounds to me like another card carrying member of the "Party".

You better keep a close track on this fellow smilies/grin.gif

"Why would the head of an international air traffic controller trade association play politics ? It is absurd"

written by ch.c., 2007-10-07 05:17:33

It is not absurd...in Brazil, where they firmly believe that everything is politic.

(The comments go on, and on)

Meanwhile:

How DARE They Say These Skies Are Unsafe!

And here's a new one. In terms of odious outrage, this one ranks right up there with the nitwit band of reporters who confidently parroted some victim's lawyer's utterly false assertion that I had testified that the Legacy was doing illegal maneuvers at the time of impact.

For the record (and this is means for the U.S. readers trying to keep track of this insanity, the Legacy's radio was not turned off. Brazilian radio coverage over the Amazon is notoriously and without dispute in very bad shape. Only a sociopath would turn off the radio.

Translation by Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo:

Legacy pilots flew with radio off
The pilots had omissive conduct, because they were only under "radar surveillance"

Agência Estado

A year having passed since the collision between the Legacy jet and the Gol Boeing, which killed 154 people on September 29 of last year, the official Air Force documents produced until now on the investigation leave no doubts: despite the controllers performance having been a "contributing" factor in the accident, the "determining" factor in the tragedy was really the two North American pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino.

The Military Police Inquiry (IPM), which investigated and indicted the controllers for "carelessness" and "lack of diligence", is explicit on proving that the pilots had "omissive conduct", since they were only under "radar surveillance" by air space control, and not under "radar vectoring". This, in aeronautic language, means the following, without margin for subjective interpretations: the Brazilian controllers served as a bridge for contact and support, but, under radar surveillance, "the responsibility for navigation is that of the pilot in command of the aircraft", as the IPM says.

Brazilian Air Foce (FAB) officers listed for a reporter some point of the omissive conduct of Lepore and Paladino, who were taking the Legacy, purchased by the ExcelAire firm, from São José dos Campos (SP) to the USA. The pilots had to follow a flight plan registered in São José dos Campos and had to follow the indications on the aeronautic chart, which is a required document in the command cabin. The controllers were "careless" is supplying support services to the pilots, giving information that was truncated or in half, but Lepore and Paladino were always advised that they were flying in a condition of "radar surveillance".

The most objective point of the omissive conduct of the North American pilots is in respect to radio communication. Neither they nor any other pilot in any part of the world needs controllers to know at what frequencies they should position their communications apparatus. The navigation charts register the frequencies sector by sector. Lepore and Paladino knew that in Sector 9, between São José and Brasilia, the frequencies are 125.05MHz 133.10MHz and 121.50MHz. On entering Sector 7, in Brasilia to Manaus, the frequencies are 123.30MHz, 128.00MHz, 133.05MHz, 135 90MHz and 121.50MHz. The frequency 121.50MHz appears in all of the sectors because it is the universal emergency band.

On September 29 of last year, it was not because the Brazilian controllers supplied some incorrect radio frequency that the Legacy pilots did not communicate with Brasilia (Cindacta-1) and Manaus (Cindacta-4) or fail to make the so called communication "bridges" [relaying via another aircraft]. According to the IPM, the reason was this: their airplane had the radio turned off, just as was also turned off the transponder, a set of antennas which make contract between the airplane, the ground radars and the anticollision system (TCAS). And everything was activated by the pilots, after the collision with the Boeing.

For about an hour, between 18h50 e 19h48, the Legacy made a blind flight, with all the communications systems turned off, thus not permitting that the Brazilian Cindactas entered in contact with it. What another inquiry, the Investigation of Aeronautic Accidents (IAA) is checking is why the Legacy apparatus was turned off. The TAB does not understand how the pilots flew so long without noting that they were without radio.

###

Here's the latest. In terms of odious outrage, this one ranks right up there with the nitwit band of reporters who confidently parroted some victim's lawyer's utterly false assertion that I had testified that the Legacy was doing illegal maneuvers at the time of impact.

For the record (and this is means for the U.S. readers trying to keep track of this insanity, the Legacy's radio was not turned off. Brazilian radio coverage over the Amazon is notoriously and without dispute in very bad shape. Only a sociopath would turn off the radio.

Translation by Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo:

Day One of Year Two, and Dines From His 3-Inch Perch

2007-09-30T13:09:00.000-04:00

It has now been a year and a day, and a few dozen things are going to be set straight starting today.

The lies and distortions, the vilification, the malicious slander and ugly threats that have been directed this way from Brazil in the last year are firmly on the record.

What is it I had done?

Oh, as the only survivor who was free to talk and write about the disaster, I told the truth of what I knew and sought the truth of what had happened.

I was painted as a villain for doing so by people, in the government, in the lickspittle Brazilian media, and among those with dollar signs (emphasis on the dollar, which remains quite fungible under favorable circumstances) in their eyes.

That's me above, in a charming graphic from Brazil that seems to suggest that I either had something to do with 9/11, or that it served me right. And yes, I have aged.

First let me deal with the allegations of my allegedly manifest lack of respect for those who died, which is one of the more odious lies that have refused to die a year later Down the Rabbit Hole. This particular canard was cooked-up during the media-fanned anti-American hysteria that followed the crash. It is routinely repeated by people in Brazil who perhaps do not know better, but who need to be reminded that grief does not exempt them from the common laws of libel and slander.

My father died several weeks after the crash, and in the delirium of his last excruciating pain-filled weeks he became convinced -- because he had just seen me on television with those awful pictures of the crash -- that I had died in a plane crash.

He was my father for 60 years, and he went to his grave believing that his first-born son had died in a crash in a jungle. As I stood at his bedside on his final night, in his delirium he said to my mother, "That man looks a lot like our Joe."

We all know grief, each in our own awful ways.

I have always expressed deep sorrow over the deaths, and deep sympathy for the relatives of the deceased, most of whom are now plaintiffs in a lawsuit against ExcelAire, the American owner of the Legacy, and Honeywell, the American company that manufactured the transponder unit in the Legacy. (The two Brazilian companies, Embraer, the manufacturer of the Legacy, and Gol Airlines, the operator of the 737 jet that went down, are not named in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court).

There is, in fact, abundant evidence of my often expressed sympathy for the dead and their relatives -- on the record, in print and in video. You could, and some did, look it up.

Some people with certain agendas Down the Rabbit Hole forget, or deliberately overlook, two major material facts:

One: I was a victim of this crash. (Oh, just watch the toadies take that sentence out of context!)

No, I didn't die or get physically injured. But to this day, none of the seven of us on the Legacy have any idea how we managed to walk away from a mid-air collision that every pilot I know says was not survivable. And every one of us (I assure you) relives those horrible moments repeatedly in our minds.

I can only imagine what goes through the minds of Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, but I can do so knowing personally what emotional turmoil they went through when we learned, three hours after the crash, that there had been a collision between our plane and the Gol 737, with 154 dead.

You don't have to be an expert in human emotion to imagine the effect on anyone living through that.

From my strictly personal point of view, defined by everything I now know about that disaster, Brazilian air traffic control and the shoddy, disgraceful Brazilian air-traffic system very damn nearly killed me on Sept. 29, 2006, and afterward plunged me into what I will only describe as a very difficult period in my life, greatly aggravated by the vilification and lies.

I did not kill those people. I was merely a hitchhiker on an airplane, minding his own business when the world around me and those with me suddenly exploded.

I know it is desirable and expedient Down the Rabbit Hole to blame the Americans, but the Brazilian government and its air traffic control system put that crash firmly, and arguably inexorably, in place.

And if you claim otherwise, you are going to need better evidence than a transponder and TCAS system that may or may not have been inadvertently knocked off line, perhaps as a consequence of a badly designed foot-rest. You had better, for example, have an explanation for why that transponder went BACK online seconds after the crash -- and don't tell me you know that the pilots turned it back on. They did not.

And you had better be able to explain the following, among other things:

1. Why did Brazilian air traffic control fail to alert the Legacy to the fact, obvious to ATC, that the transponder wasn't signaling for nearly 5o minutes before collision? Why was there no attempt made to contact the Legacy?

2. Why did the Brazilian radar scope consistently show misreadings of the Legacy's altitude, in several instances indicating wild oscillations that in fact never occurred?

3. Why are we still hearing about a discarded "flight plan," when it is not in dispute that the Legacy was ordered to maintain 37,000 feet, and that ATC orders routinely override flight plans and are always to be followed?

4. Why have we heard so little on the record about the Gol's flight plan and clearance? Why have we not seen a transcript of the Gol cockpit voice recorder?

5. Why is the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which now knows precisely what happened on Sept. 29, sitting on its hands, citing procedure, when two American pilots are being criminally scapegoated?

Those questions go on, and will be revisited here.

Two: Literally from Day Two, very significant portions of the Brazilian media energetically abetted the government's cover-up and readily accepted outright lies as fact, by way of fanning the flames of anti-American hysteria. So many lies were flying my way that it took me months to realize the futility of trying to swat them all away.

Here is an example. It is on the record, if you choose to look at that particular shoddy record, that I supposedly told Brazilian investigators that the Legacy was performing dangerous aerial maneuvers over the Amazon right before the collision. On the record! You could look it up! The report on what I supposedly said, which turns out to have been conveyed to a group of reporters in Brazil by a lawyer putting together a lawsuit on behalf of the victims, was even carried worldwide by the Dow Jones News Service until I made them correct it.

Obviously, I never said any such thing.

What I did say, which created the initial storm of furor, was that international pilots were telling me that Brazilian air traffic control was unreliable, and that there were well-known radio and radar problems over the Amazon. (By the way, an Air Force investigator looking over our damaged plane at the site where we landed told me the same thing in confidence). I said this not in a newspaper story, as was widely claimed in Brazil, but in a quick interview with CNN a couple of days after the crash. Both assertions about Brazil's unsafe skies, of course, are now widely known to be true.

And that brings me to the Brazilian media itself. In the early stages of this long process of trying to hammer out the truth on this blog, I responded to most Brazilian media requests (or in some cases demands) for interviews. I did these print and television interviews, which I hate to do, as a matter of journalistic responsibility.

But again and again and again, I found that reporters wanted merely to confront me with bogus claims, which I then was expected to refute. Here they were, talking to the only survivor who was free to speak about the crash, and all they wanted to do was argue with him!

I'd never before experienced anything remotely like it in journalism. Subsequently it struck me as being probably a bit like the experience one might go through if one were foolish enough to be on the other side of Bill O'Reilly's microphone and kill button.

Which finally brings me to this Alberto Dines, a misdemeanor in the Brazilian media whose unfortunate job it is to scold the felonies. Mr. Dines is a press critic and political observer, something, I gather, of a Latin American David Broder, puffing reflectively on that pipe while ruminating about Lessons Learned by the Media Gentry.

Now, this is an unkind thing to say, but I am not feeling kind:

Being a press critic in Brazil is kind of like being the sheriff in the town with the 100-room whorehouse. Every so often the sheriff has to ride down Main Street blowing his tin whistle and shooting his cap-gun in the air and scaring the girls, just to make it look good for the Proprietors and other respectable citizens.

Sheriff Dines recently wrote the following, which asserts that the big problem seems to be the "humiliating" experience of the two recent air disasters in Brazil, rather than that nation's manifest failure to do anything to fundamentally improve safety in the 12 months since the first one:

"In Brazilian society there remains the bitter taste of revulsion for the humiliating aviation collapse which paralyzed the country along the ten following months, but, overall, for the second catastrophe which took the lives of another 199 citizens.

"It was not the government that was to blame for the collision of the Gol Boeing with the Legacy jet in the Amazon's air space, nor for the explosion of the TAM Airbus on striking a warehouse next door to Congonhas Airport.

"But one can affirm that the Brazilian state, managed by a pusillanimous Executive - visibly worried about the runoff ballot in the presidential elections - was incapable of avoiding the climate of political emotion that impeded both the emergency actions designed to avoid chaos in air traffic as well as, afterward, braking the irresponsibility of the duopoly which dominates commercial aviation.

"It must be recognized that the performance of the then minister of Defense, Waldir Pires, was calamitous following the collision. Well intentioned, conscious of the dangers that a catastrophe of those proportions represented to the candidate for reelection in the final runoff on October 30, the minister delivered himself to a shouting match with the American journalist who was aboard the Legacy and, soon after, with the jet's two pilots, of the same nationality.

"A Minister of State does not get involved in corner brawls, and besides that, it wasn't his line of work, the Air Force has experience and highly qualified personnel to handle situations of this sort. ..."

Wait a minute! Somebody get the key to the gas-mask locker! "It was not that the government was to blame?" If not, who?

Oh.

The obsequious Dines, lost in whatever mists surround him on his three-inch-high parrot perch, seems to think that I chose to draw the "well intentioned" Defense Minister into what he calls a "shouting match" and "corner brawls." In fact, as anyone with the sense of a turnip ought to be able to guess, I never heard of the fellow until he started denouncing me in public.

And, in what sounds like a bad line that didn't make it into "The Sopranos," this Dines darkly suggests that "the Air Force has experience and highly qualified personnel to handle situations of this sort. ..."

Jayzus, Dines! What are you intimating there? "The Air Force has highly qualified personnel to handle situations of this sort"!

Dammit, now, I forget what the hit men are supposed to do -- take the cannolis and leave the gun, or vice versa? For protection, I'd go find Tony Soprano, but he was killed at Holsten's, which is now just a neighborhood soda fountain and candy shop again.

To those accustomed to genuflecting to power, even while sweetly whispering the gentlest of admonitions in the hush tones that might be heard in the Vatican apartments ("Ah, dear Cardinal Dines! We do so appreciate your counsel!"), speaking the truth evidently sounds a bit like shouting.

Oh, I remember now. It's leave the gun, take the cannolis. If I turn up in a trunk in the Meadowlands, please drag this Dines and find out where he was on the night in question.

###

Sept. 29, 2006 - Sept. 29, 2007

2007-09-29T06:38:00.000-04:00

The Empty Skies

2007-09-26T10:42:00.000-04:00

Why pilots of two aircraft on a collision course at a closing speed of 1,000 miles an hour wouldn't necessarily see anything before impact, and other mysteries of the Sept. 29 crash, as addressed by a commercial airline pilot.

###

For the Record

2007-09-23T19:22:00.000-04:00

I recently posted the gravely flawed congressional-investigation (CPI) report into the Sept. 29 crash, which is riddled with erroneous mistranslations by congressional officials from English to Portuguese and back, as noted by our own eminently reliable translator Mr. Pedicini.

Events are closing. The criminal trial continues. Civil litigation over the claims of victims -- filed against Gol Airlines as a matter of procedure, with the other principals included in the defense -- is moving inexorably toward a settlement, and my guess is that an out-of-court deal will come with gag orders. There's a lot of money on the table. Obviously, the families of the 154 victim have to be compensated. By whom? More later.

[Added Sept. 26: The perils of linking to the unreliable and selectively edited Brazilian documents are manifest. For example, the pilots of the Legacy had some difficulty trying to figure out how to turn on the cabin in-flight entertainment system (basically that screen display that shows passengers altitude and course). Their discussion on that subject is part of the transcript, but casual readers from Brazil have e-mailed me demanding to know why I don't admit the transcript of the pilots' conversation on that subject indicates they were unfamiliar with the Legacy. The "Air Show" cabin video system, of course, has no more to do with the flying an airplane or with aircraft avionics than the galley coffee pot does.]

The first anniversary of the crash is Saturday.

For those who have been carefully following this story, here are previously published links to key documents, to be considered along with the CPI draft report. As regards the ExcelAire report, it is interesting (and important) to note that no one has disputed anything in it.

The links:

IFACTA REPORT (from the international air traffic controllers organization)

http://js.biztravelife.com/IFATCA-Brazil-Mishap.pdf

IFATCA MAGAZINE SPECIAL

http://js.biztravelife.com/IFATCA-magazine.pdf

EXCELAIRE REPORT (It's long, about 70 pages)

http://js.biztravelife.com/Submissions.pdf

FAA Airworthiness Directive on transponders (Sept 2006) Note the section on Honeywell transponders in EMB-135 jets, which is the airframe of the Legacy.

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/0/1BDDC176AC629452862571E70059100D?OpenDocument

###

The CPI Report on the Sept. 29 Crash

2007-09-10T15:27:00.000-04:00

Here is a link to a pdf file of the 170-page report by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) on the Sept. 29 crash and the crisis in Brazilian air traffic.

Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo tirelessly translated this from the Portuguese, and has added Translator's Notes at appropriate spots to point out slips, errors and outright mistranslations in the Portuguese version of English radio transcripts from the American pilots.

###

The Truth Finally Gets Its Socks On

2007-09-08T16:58:00.000-04:00

Given that the two American pilots of the Legacy 600 are now on trial, in absentia, on criminal charges that carry prison time in Brazil, it’s interesting to see how conventional wisdom has finally evolved in Brazil to accommodate realities that were violently in dispute for many months after the Sept. 29 crash.

Take this article by Concetta Kim Martens of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a think-tank whose interests include “the formulation of rational and constructive U.S. policies towards Latin America.” The article was published on the organization’s Web site, www.COHA.org, and republished by Brazil Magazine (www.brazzil.com), where it drew lively reader comment.

Obviously, I have no quarrel with the essence of the article.

That’s because nearly every assertion in it was first made a long time ago on this blog. But that was way back when no one else in the media was even raising the issues of the soundness of Brazil’s air-traffic control system, or criticizing the reckless rush by the Brazilian government, military and Federal Police to criminalize the Sept. 29 accident and scapegoat the American pilots.

Now that accuracy is winning the battle, we need to encourage perspective to march forward. So I need to point out that the COHA article, while essentially correct in its points, shades history a bit. And as I sense we are nearing the point where journalism must tip its fedora to history, I am sure Ms. Martens will forgive my nit-picking.

For one thing, she muddies the facts a bit on the demeanor of air-traffic controllers after the accident. “Since the September 29 Gol crash over the Amazon, controllers felt unfairly targeted for splenetic criticism [my italics] they were receiving from the public, and reacted by staging several work stoppages …” she writes.

Didn't happen quite that way.

Here is what did happen:

First the American pilots were recklessly and, it seemed to me universally, scapegoated. It took a while for the public in Brazil to become aware of, or concede, the role of air-traffic control in the accident.

Remember how long the ex-defense minister, Wonderful Waldir Pires, loudly insisted that the pilots caused the crash by performing reckless aerial loop d loops over the Amazon? Nobody in power told him to put a lid on that nonsense, including his boss, the President, who won a runoff election amid the passions of the disaster, which had occurred two days before the polls opened.

Only in time did the general public, but not the authorities, acknowledge that the Sept. 29 crash had been set in motion by a series of egregious errors by air traffic controllers, who themselves were working in deplorable conditions with faulty equipment within a system beset with major technological deficiencies in radar and radio communications, especially over the Amazon.

Initially, as I argued last October, November and afterward, the air-traffic controllers' protests were basically a warning shot across the bow of government and military to not implicate air -traffic control in the blame.

What actually happened was that low-ranking controllers – fearing that they, too, might become scapegoats along with the pilots (which in fact ultimately happened) – clammed up while the American pilots remained in custody in Brazil.

While the pilots twisted in the wind, the core group of controllers who were on duty during the accident -- the people who knew, for example, that air-traffic control was aware of the transponder malfunction on the Legacy for 50 minutes before the crash and failed to raise the alarm -- remained silent, went to ground and refused to answer any questions, citing psychological trauma.

As the protests continued for months, air traffic in Brazil was thrown into chaos.

For months after the Sept. 29 accident, public sentiment, whipped up by xenophobic Brazilian media, had focused sharply and exclusively on the Americans as culprits. There was no “splenetic criticism” in Brazil of the air traffic controllers that I am aware of. Of course, I was raising criticism of air traffic control on this little blog. It wasn't splenetic -- though the outraged and verbally violent reaction to it certainly was.

Ms. Martens does zero-in effectively on some of the official nitwits who continually brayed that all was well in Brazil’s skies; that the Sept. 29 disaster was caused strictly by reckless, arrogant Americans; that

Brazil

’s skies and airports were under world-class supervision and that to say otherwise was a base calumny and an insult to the honor of the nation.

Of course, the official indignation all rang a bit hollow again in July, when another airplane crash killed 199 people at overcrowded, unsafe Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s busiest.

Wonderful Waldir Pires, the obstinate Defense Minister responsible for air-traffic control, was finally out the door. So was Jose Carlos “Sunshine” Pereira, who ran the airports authority and suggested that it was slander to suggest that anything, anything might be wrong with

Brazil

’s aviation system.

Sunshine Pereira ranks right up there near Wonderful Waldir as a classic character in this story. Pereira steadfastly insisted after the Sept. 29 crash, even as the evidence became manifestly clear that both aircraft had been put on a collision course at 37,000 feet by air traffic control, that “it is not the best moment to carry out changes” including addressing the inept military control of civilian aviation.

Later, as international aviation groups expressed outrage at the way

Brazil

had clumsily politicized and criminalized the Sept. 29 accident, and even after the second horrible accident in July, with 350 now dead in two disasters in 10 months, Sunshine Pereira stood by his rusty guns.

“Brazil does not need international help,” he proclaimed, inanely. “The crisis is ours. The dead are ours.”

Shortly after, he was ducked-walked off the deck.

But as Ms. Martens writes, the President remained in a defensive crouch. “The security of our aviation system is compatible with all other international standards,” Lucky Lula proclaimed. As recently as three weeks ago, Lucky Lula was still scoffing at the fact, otherwise widely accepted all over the world, that there are black holes and blind spots in air-traffic control radar and radio communications over the Amazon.

I assume Ms. Martens’ small deficiencies in context and nuance are a consequence of the demands of concise summary. She writes: “President da Silva’s government has come under a great deal of fire for failing to properly address the nation’s air-travel safety, an act that according to several aviation experts, and the adamant belief of a good deal of the public sentiment, led to the air disaster” [s]

Well, I'm here to repeat, for the record, that this "public sentiment" took a long time getting its socks on, and even longer to reach the level of being "adamant."

And I should also point out that, while public sentiment may well have finally come around to the truth, as Ms. Martens asserts, two American pilots remain on trial on spurious criminal charges that public sentiment realizes were trumped-up.

--end

Brazil's Skies: 'Unreliable, Unsafe and Inefficient'

2007-09-04T14:43:00.000-04:00

Here are some findings in a critical new report-card on Brazil's air-traffic management sent to Brazilian airlines and aviation officials last month by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), whose 224 member airlines represent 94 percent of the world's passenger and cargo traffic:

--The air-traffic control system in Brazil is "unreliable, unsafe and inefficient," with negative effects not only on basic transportation, but on "opportunities for economic growth."

--Nor are things improving, given the government's failure to address political mismanagement of civilian aviation in Brazil. "The political crisis is expected to continue for some time, possibly causing further ATC [air-traffic control] problems in the near future."

--Since the Sept. 29 mid-air collision over the Amazon that killed 154 people, labor problems and other disruptions in air-traffic control have "magnified the deficiencies of the ATC system" while costing airlines "more than $70 million" because of delays and airport problems.

--"There is concern in the industry that appropriate training for air traffic, airline and airport technical support is not being provided. For example, it is apparent that Brazil will be unable to comply with ICAO-mandated [International Civil Aviation Organization] ATC English-proficiency level by next year."

--In 2006, the accident rate for Brazilian operators was 3.5 times higher than world average and 1.25 times higher than the regional rate" for Latin American countries. [My note: Brazil's accident rate -- a measure of aircraft-hull losses -- was significantly higher than the world average in each of the last five years, so the loss of the Gol 737 on Sept. 29, 2006 was not the deciding factor.]

The IATA report was not publicly released. I obtained a copy, as did some Brazilian newspapers that ran edited excerpts.

In the Aug. 15 report, the world airline trade group outlined "short-term objectives" and offered assistance to Brazilian authorities in fixing the country's air-traffic control system.

Some of the "objectives:"

--"Establish a communication link between the Ministry [the Defense Ministry, which runs aviation] and the IATA and airlines to enable collaborative decision-making process by which industry experts will meet on a monthly basis during the next 12 months."

--"Implement a contingency plan to mitigate ATC problems."

--"Resolve political-labor problems" in air traffic control.

--"Ensure that ICAO principles are applied to accident investigations without external [My note: meaning "political"] interference..."

--"Ensure that adequate air-traffic services are rendered by all area control centers, including radar surveillance, ground-to-air communications and navigational aids."

--"Achieve compliance with ICAO-mandated ATC English proficiency levels."

###

The Brazilian media gave the report cursory attention and focused on only a few elements. Here are some excerpts from today's Folha (translation by Richard Pedicini):

Folha de São Paulo

"Brazil has 3.5 times more accidents than the world average ... Numbers are from 2006 and are in International Air Transport Association report; government did not comment. ... According to the document, the air traffic control situation is 'unstable, inefficient and harms flight safety'

Brazil had, last year, 3.5 times more accidents than the world average and air traffic control harms flight safety, affirmed a report by IATA (English acronym for International Air Transport Association) to which the Folha had access.

The document was sent to the Ministry of Defense, to the airlines and to SNEA (National Airlines Syndicate) on the situation of air transport in the country. ...

IATA foresees that the crisis is ongoing and that the country may suffer impacts in tourism and, ultimately, in connectivity with the rest of the world. ...

Other measures indicated are the solution of the political and labor problems surrounding the air traffic controllers and the improvement of the professionals' level of proficiency in English. ...

According to the report, very favorable to the airlines, the lack of a contingency plan affects reliability and efficiency of the airlines' operations.

Sought out, the Ministry of Defense made no comment.

###

[MY COMMENT:]

The IATA merely reiterates -- albeit with the clout of the world's airlines behind it -- what anyone who has been seriously following this story since the Sept. 29 disaster last year knows well. Brazilian air-traffic control is in chronic disarray and disrepair.

Hobbled by poor training, miserable morale and unreliable equipment, Brazilian air traffic controllers inadvertently put those two aircraft on a collision course, and failed to take action to prevent the disaster even though it was apparent for 50 minutes before the crash that a disaster was being set in motion out over the Amazon.

We've come a long way in 11 months, it seems. At least now, the sorry state of Brazilian air-traffic control is at least acknowledged. By some.

A few days after getting out of Brazil following the Sept. 29 crash, and while involved in a media circus that enveloped me because I was the only survivor free to write and talk about what had happened, I mentioned in an interview, with CNN I think it was, that Brazil's air space over the Amazon was notoriously perilous, with air-traffic-control radar blind zones and radio-communications blackout areas. Not to mention air-traffic controllers who are poorly trained and demoralized, and in many cases unable to communicate adequately in English, the lingua franca of world aviation.

How did I know this? Well, at the jungle air strip where the seven of us who survived were held after we made an emergency landing in the damaged Legacy 600, two Brazilian military investigators who showed up as the inquiry into the crash began told me so. So did a half-dozen international pilots who fly Brazil's skies and who e mailed or phoned me after the crash.

And calls to others elicited the same information: You fly the Amazon air routes -- where traffic has been increasing sharply in recent years -- hoping that nothing gets in your way, especially in the vast stretches of rain forest between Brasilia and Manaus, where the collision occurred, because you're often simply out of contact with the ground (and the ground with you).

The reaction in Brazil to my saying this in an interview in early October frankly astonished me. You'd have thought I had accused the Brazilian Air Force, which runs all air-traffic control, of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and selling it to drug dealers.

The mob came at me with virtual torches and pitchforks. The former Defense Minister, Wonderful Waldir Pires (since fired), denounced me personally on several occasions for my effrontery in stating what was obvious about Brazilian air-traffic control. The President, Luiz Inacio (Lucky) Lula da Silva, was reportedly furious at what he regarded as an insult to Brazil's honor.

In fact, in press interviews, Lucky Lula again invoked my alleged calumny two weeks ago, as if it were not now freely acknowledged -- even in Brazilian investigations into the crash -- that there are notorious dead zones for radar and radio communications over the Amazon, and that the Brazilian air traffic control has some ... well, issues, as the tech people say.

Meanwhile, the criminal trial continues in Sinop, a small city in the Amazon. Two American pilots and four Brazilian air traffic controllers, the designated scapegoats for this disgraceful system, remain in grave peril.

--end

Video of Jungle Search

2007-09-03T17:11:00.000-04:00

As the criminal trial goes on, it's easy to get diverted by procedure and the endless recriminations in Brazil and forget what happened to 154 victims. On Sunday night, Fantastico, the top-rated Brazilian TV news magazine, ran haunting and previously unseen video of the rescue operations in the Amazon. Here is the link.

###

Trial Update

2007-09-03T12:57:00.000-04:00

Above: The Sinop airport and the trial proceedings.

Update on the trial from So Noticias, a news site that covers the interior of Mato Grosso state. The trial is being held in the small city of Sinop, near the Amazon crash site. (Translation thanks to Richard Pedicini).

Note this amazing wording in the story, which reflects a common attitude that convictions are a sure thing: "There is no time set for the verdict and sentencing of the accused."

From So Noticias:

"New steps in the trial in the second worst air accident in the history of Brazilian aviation, in the far north of Mato Grosso, will be set starting on the 12th. This was the deadline stipulated by the federal judge in Sinop, Murilo Mendes, for the lawyers for American pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, and for the four air traffic controllers, all indicted by the Federal Prosecutors' Office (MPF), to present their thesis of defense and their list of witnesses.

Só Notícias learned that this stage will be marked by the testimony of the witnesses for the accusation and, later, the defense. Prosecutor Thiago Lemos de Andrade has already declared that only two were presented by the MPF, one being an air traffic control supervisor and a passenger in the Legacy jet. [MY NOTE: I don't know who they are referring to by "a passenger in the Legacy jet." Along with the two pilots, there were five passengers: Two employees of the Long Island air-charter company, ExcelAire, which had just purchased the plane in Brazil; two employees of Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer; and me, a reporter on a freelance assignment who hitched a ride on the 13-seat Legacy].

After that a period will also be opened for possible requests for investigations and examinations.

There is no time set for the verdict and sentencing of the accused.

This week, the controllers who were working in Cindacta 1, in Brasilia, on the day of the accident – Jomarcelo Fernandes dos Santos, Lucivando Tibúrcio de Alencar, Leandro José Santos de Barros and Felipe Santos dos Reis - testified in Sinop. Judge Murilo Mendes questioned the four on the acts that appear in the indictment presented by the Federal Prosecutors' Office and which may have contributed to the accident, in which the 154 passengers and crew died.

Americans Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, who were piloting the Legacy jet, which was involved in the collision with the Gol Boeing, did not appear. The lawyers asked that they be heard in the USA, but the request was denied by Murilo Mendes who determined that the trial would continue without their presence.

Before the 12th, the Federal Court should send the transcript of the hearings to the parts involved, so that they can manifest themselves and object to items with which they disagree. "

###

Trumped-Up Charges

2007-08-29T09:57:00.000-04:00

In Brazil, trumped-up charges...outraged international peer groups...xenophobia gone wild ...

No, this has nothing to do with American pilots. Without further comment ...

###

Once More Down the Rabbit Hole

2007-08-28T11:43:00.000-04:00

I hate to trot out the old Alice in Wonderland woodcut again, but the Brazilian criminal court in which the two American pilots are now being tried has taken us, once again, down the rabbit hole.

As reported here previously, the charge that the pilots face (as trumped-up as it is), is not an extradictable one under the applicable U.S.-Brazil treaty, because it does not allege intent.

Nevertheless, Judge Murilo Mendes of the federal court in Sinop, a regional center on the edge of the Amazon jungle over which the Sept. 29 mid-air collision occurred, is insisting that the two pilots come to Brazil to testify, rather than testifying in depositions in the United States, as allowed by the treaty.

The jurist's reasoning: A request to avoid coming to Brazil (where the two Americans were held without charge for over two months after the crash in an atmosphere of loud anti-Americanism and politicization of the accident) is an attempt "to revert the natural order of things. The defendant should come to the judge, and not the judge to the defendant."

Well, so much for international treaties, which must of course bow to some Brazilian regional judge's ad-hoc argument invoking "the natural order of things."

Meanwhile, here's another flash from down the rabbit hole:

Claudio Pimentel, a Brazilian lawyer representing the families of some of the 154 who were killed in a multi-million-dollar civil suit against the Americans is involved in the criminal trial as an assistant to the prosecution.

And he's even allowed to make pronouncements that the defendants are, of course, guilty. (Why would they be on trial if they were not? And how else could money be made?)

What's more, the civil suit lawyer/assistant to the prosecution is loudly calling for the "preventive arrest" of the American pilots (an arrest that could only be legally accomplished, of course, if the pilots were to come to Brazil as defendants seeking a fair trial. As I said, welcome down the rabbit hole).

The newspaper Diario de Cuiaba (translation by Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo), has the civil-suit lawyer/assistant to the prosecution accusing the pilots of "disrespect for the families and the Brazilian courts."

From relatives: "the absence of the pilots at the [trial's first day] was a demonstration of carelessness with the fact." And, "They are afraid to face the court, which will bring to light their blame."

Lawyers for the American pilots are appealing the judge's decision that they must come to Brazil to defend themselves. The Brazilian judge has been assured that, in the United States, he would be free to conduct questioning as he sees fit.

[A personal note: Now that emotions are heating up again with the trial under way, I'm back in the gun-sights of various lackeys in the Brazilian media -- where journalism traditionally reflects, and genuflects to, entrenched power and money, and where there is a lack of tradition of independence.

As the only eyewitness who has been free to write openly about this tragedy (the other six survivors being constrained by various legalities), I've done so, with conviction, since day one. But I've done it as an independent journalist, reporting from here, on my own personal blog -- which is widely read, and parsed, by interested parties in Brazil.

Certain Brazilian reporters and politicians, reflecting the weird xenophobia of Brazil's chattering classes, find it politically expedient to misidentify my affiliations. They do this willfully and dishonestly.

[Appended Aug. 30: It has been pointed out to me that the Brazilian media in question also act without regard to the perils of libel (the laws of which are clear in Brazil) -- specifically on the matters of willful negligence, reckless disregard for the truth, a refusal to correct egregious errors, and a disregard of damage to reputation caused by deliberately repeating falsehoods.]

Anyway, let's be clear (to the extent that clarity is permitted to exist in a poisoned atmosphere):

This is a totally independent blog produced by a freelance writer who answers to no one but himself. I write it because I was there, because I know what happened, and because it is my duty to bear witness.

It says a lot about how thin-skinned and insecure certain elements among the powerful are in Brazil, that they get so emotionally upset about a mere independent blogger's reporting on what they're up to.]

###

Brazil Demands Pilots Return

2007-08-25T11:08:00.000-04:00

Above: American pilots Joe Lepore (l) and Jan Paladino, in Brazil shortly after the accident.

It's been nearly 11 months since the mid-air collision that killed 154 over the Amazon, and the trumped-up criminal case against the American pilots is moving forward.

A Brazilian criminal court was scheduled to begin proceedings on Monday in Sinop, a regional city in Mato Grosso. Mato Grosso is the state where the Gol Airlines 737 plunged into the jungle after colliding with the American Legacy 600 business jet on Sept. 29. Both planes were at 37,000 feet on courses set by air traffic control.

The judge ordered that the American pilots appear in court to testify. Through their lawyers, the pilots (undoubtedly mindful that they were detained without charge in Brazil for more than two months after the crash) have said no, they'll testify under oath in the United States instead, as is their right under a U.S.-Brazil treaty.

The judge denied that motion and rescheduled the hearing for Tuesday. [For details and a transcript of the judge's decision, see the end of this post].

[Update Aug. 26: "We will urge him tomorrow to reconsider and otherwise appeal," Joel R. Weiss, a lawyer for the pilots in the United States said Sunday.]

The following is not in dispute: Under the applicable treaty between the Unites States and Brazil, the charge against the pilots, which does not claim criminal intent, is not an extradictable one.

But why not just go to Brazil and testify voluntarily as a show of good faith?

Because experience has shown that the Brazilian system has been untrustworthy in this case.

I fully understand the pilots' wishes to avoid placing themselves in physical jeopardy in Brazil again. Remember, they were detained without charge for more than two months after the crash -- in an atmosphere of ugly anti-American sentiment and recrimination.

From my perspective, the Brazilian police, military and courts exhibited bad faith when they politicized and criminalized this accident against all practices of international aviation investigations. In my opinion, they continue to show bad faith, as evidenced by the fact that the criminal charge against the pilots is largely supported by assertions that have already been shown to be false.

Following a weird 36 hours of custody and interrogation myself after the seven of us on the Legacy inexplicably survived the crash, I know that the pilots have good reason to stay out of Brazil, where the move to scapegoat them for the crash (with four air traffic controllers later tossed in for cover) has been blatant and persistent.

An update:

From the BBC Brazil:

Bruno Garcez

Washington - The lawyer for the two pilots of the Legacy jet that collided with a Gol airlines Boeing on September 29, 2006, provoking the second worst aviation accident in the Brazilian history, blamed the " aviation chaos" in the country for the accident.

"Brazil's aviation safety system in chaos. There are radars that fail, planes that are sent back, the minister of Defense lost his post, the air traffic controllers went on strike and are overworked. The air traffic control system put the two planes on a collision course. It's that simple", said Joel R. Weiss [the attorney who represents the pilots in the United States]… .

''They are in the United States, where they live and work. According to a legal treaty between the two countries, they can testify from here. The treaty does not permit that they be obliged to return to Brazil. They are not trying to avoid testifying,” [Weiss said] …

In a dispatch sent to federal judge Murilo Mendes, responsible for the case, the defense asked that they be heard in the United States - but the judge denied the request. Reacting to the decision, Lepore and Paladino advised, through their lawyers, that they would not appear at the hearing. If Lepore and Paladino in fact do not appear, the judge should decide what procedure to adopt afterwards. …[Weiss] affirmed that the lawyer for the two pilots in

Brazil

, Theo Dias, will appear at the audience in Sinop, on Monday and "will ask the judges to reconsider their position and accept that they testify from the United States." …

The lawyer for the families [of those killed on the Gol Airlines 737] affirmed that the decision by the two pilots "is very disappointing". ''They frequently say that they have no responsibility for the accident. And affirmed that they were falsely accused in Brazil. If that is the case, you'd think that they would not be afraid to come to the country and clear their names", commented Lexi Hazam. …

##

MY COMMENTS:

The Brazilian media have largely stood down from shrill accusations against the Americans, and the press now at least grudgingly reflects the facts – not any longer in dispute – that air traffic control mistakenly had both planes at 37,000 feet, and that a series of egregious errors occurred on the ground during the 55 minutes preceding the collision.

I say "largely." As you can see by this post on Brazzil.com/Brazil Magazine (a news outlet that I actually greatly admire for its dynamic energy and the way it presents a myriad of views and engages its readers), the occasional nitwit is still out there beating the dead horse. However, if you follow the link through the article to the comments, you'll see evidence that the tide has turned, and this nonsense -- that somehow, defenders of the pilots are liars and driven only by the desire to bash Brazil -- simply isn't being swallowed wholesale anymore by the general public.

I say "wholesale." Don't miss the one wonderful comment from a deluded soul who insists that I am being paid to hide evidence and provide "false testimony," for which I will be prosecuted.

(Uh, no, Skippy, you're barking up the wrong tree there. From day one, this blog has been done strictly pro-bono, and strictly on my own. Hey, I was just a working stiff on a freelance magazine assignment, minding his own business one afternoon last September when Brazilian air traffic control suddenly put me in a mid-air collision at 37,000 feet over the damn Amazon that almost got me and six others killed, and did get 154 passengers on the 737 tragically killed. Given that I've been a working journalist for 37 years, it shouldn't be hard to understand why I've been somewhat motivated on the topic.)

The major unanswered question continues to be whether the Legacy's transponder – an avionics unit that also triggers the anti-collision alert – was inadvertently turned off or put into standby by the pilots, perhaps with a slip of the foot on a footrest near the place where the unit is housed.

There also are assertions, made by ExcelAire, the Long Island charter company that had taken delivery of the Legacy on the day of the accident, that subsequent investigations indicate that the Honeywell transponder unit installed in the brand-new $25 million Legacy was not new and had, in fact, been previously repaired, unbeknownst to ExcelAire. To my knowledge, neither Honeywell nor Embraer, the manufacturer of the Legacy, has refuted these claims. If they do so, I will be happy to prominently publish those statements here.

The criminal charge against the pilots is that they negligently exposed an aircraft to danger with death as an aggravating factor. The accusation specifies three rationale underlying the charge: Failure to follow the written flight plan; negligently switching off the transponder; and failure to maintain communication.

No one who is aware of the facts in this case gives credence to the assertion that the pilots failed to follow the written flight plan, since that flight plan was clearly superseded (as flight plans routinely are) by direct instructions by air traffic control to maintain 37,000 feet to Manaus. Likewise, the assertion that the pilots failed to maintain communication is specious, as shown by the cockpit tape recorder evidence. It's even more absurd given the now-acknowledged fact that the air space in question is infamous among world pilots and air-traffic controllers alike for being riddled with radio and radar blind zones.

As to the transponder: That the transponder was not working properly is not in dispute, though no one has shown any evidence yet as to why. In fact, air traffic control in Brasilia was aware of the Legacy’s transponder malfunction for 50 minutes before the collision, and inexplicably failed to warn either plane, both of which were in and out of radio contact in notorious Amazon communications blind zones and radar dead zones that the Brazilian authorities swore for months did not exist.

In the crash scenario, a transponder and its anti-collision system would have been the last possible chance to avoid the collision that had already been set in motion.

Richard Pedicini, our correspondent, who has been diligently following the case from Sao Paulo, writes that it’s now generally conceded among journalists covering the case that “in fact the pilots were at the altitude authorized and instructed by ATC, and that ATC made numerous and repeated errors and omissions.”

He adds, ”I think that at this stage you'll find few serious journalists who are unaware that in fact the Legacy was clearly authorized to be at 37,000 feet all the way to Manaus. However, they conveyed that to their readers or viewers far less emphatically or persuasively than they early conveyed [the assertion] that the pilots were at the wrong altitude.”

XXXXX

Folha on line

8/24/2007

Legacy pilots refuse to testify in Brazil

Lepore and Paladino do only accept to inquiry in the USA

Mato-Grosso Judge denies the motion and maintains the hearing

In a petition sent by fax at the end of this Thursday (23), the North Americans', Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, lawyers informed the Federal Justice that they will not attend the hearing scheduled for Monday (27), at the judiciary district of Sinop (MT). Lepore and Paladino are the pilots of the Legacy corporate jet involved in a midair collision with a Boeing of the Air Company, Gol, on September 29^th , 2006. As a consequence of the collision, the Boeing plunged into the Mato Grosso rainforest, killing all passengers and crew, a total number of 154.

The pilots are defendants in a criminal lawsuit in Sinop, after investigations by the Federal Police and denounce by the Public Ministry. They had been notified by the Federal Judge Murilo Mendes. The pilots' lawyers had made an official request, addressed to the Judge, asking permission for them to testify in the USA.

On this Thursday afternoon (23), Judge Murilo rejected the petition. He demanded that Lepore and Paladino present themselves next Monday, in accordance with his last month's notification. As a result of that decision, the pilots lawyers informed, by fax, that they would not be present at the hearing. Even so the judge maintained it.

Murilo Mendes announced that, on the scheduled hour for the hearing, he will decide which procedure will be adopted, should the pilots not show up. Paladino and Lepore were accused based on article 261 of the Penal Codex. The penalty ranges from two to five years of imprisonment for defendants of "exposing to aircraft or embarkation to danger, or perform any action tending to impede or difficult maritime, fluvial or aerial navigation".

Investigations by the Federal Police concluded that the North American pilots acted with "negligence" and "irresponsibility" at the moment they were piloting the Legacy. According to the inquiry, which swells the pages of the judicial lawsuit, they disconnected the anti-collision device, transponder of the corporate jet.

In a petition to judge Murilo Mendes, Lepore and Paladino made reference to an agreement between Brazil and the USA signed in 2001, called "Agreement of Judiciary Assistance in Criminal Matter". They specifically mentioned articles 8 ^th and 10^th.

The judge of Sinop denied the request with base on a decision by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), related by minister Félix Fischer. It says that the agreement between Brazil and the USA has the purpose of facilitating the battle against delicts in both countries. But that it cannot be used as a means of "altering the way by which lawsuit proceedings are performed in the State territory". It also says that the subpoena and notification will be made in the foreign territory and in accordance with that State's legislation; but the hearing, if determined that it has to take place in Brazil, shall obey the Brazilian norms."

Besides the North American pilots, four flight controllers are defendants in the Mato-Grosso criminal lawsuit: Jomarcelo Fernandes dos Santos, Lucivando Tibúrcio de Alencar, Leandro José Santos de Barros and Felipe Santos dos Reis. They were on duty at the moment of the accident and have been notified to testify next Tuesday (28).

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

JUDGE'S DECISION DENYING PILOTS RIGHT TO TESTIFY IN U.S.
(Translation courtesy of Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo)

http://conjur.estadao.com.br/static/text/58850,1

Hearing Impossible
(Excerpted from O Estado de S. Paulo)
By Priscyla Costa

American pilots Joseph Lepore and Jean Paul Paladino, indicted as responsible for the accident between the Legacy jet and the Gol Boeing ... are unlikely to be heard by the courts. The federal judge of Sinop (Mato Grosso), Murilo Mendes, who is taking care of the case, denied the request of the pilots who want to be heard in the United States, where they live. No one believes that they will spontaneously come to Brazil to give testimony.

[In denying the motion, the judge said] ... "Citation and serving can be performed in foreign territory, according to the legislation of that State, but the interrogation, if it is determined that it should be undertaken in Brazil, will follow Brazilian rules," [he said].

On of the arguments of the American pilots' defense is that Decree 3,810/01, the Mutual Assistance Agreement in Criminal Matters between the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Government of the United States of America, authorized the Brazilian judge to undertake the interrogation in the USA and that, according to the Decree, the foreigner is not obliged to come to Brazil to testify.

Murilo Mendes explained that in foreign territory, a Brazilian judge, as a rule, does not have jurisdiction. So much so that the treaty, when it speaks of the actions of the Brazilian authority who is in the United States hearing some person, affirms that the responding State will 'permit' that these persons present questions. ...

[To follow the treaty and allow the pilots to testify outside his presence, the jurist decided],
... the Brazilian judge who is there, therefore, is not precisely a judge, he would be a 'half-judge', defended Mendes. "A judge without jurisdiction is not a judge. If a Judge needs to ask another (foreigner or not) permission to ask a question it's because he is not invested with any state power at all," he completed. ...

[The pilots and flight controllers were] ... was charged under article 261 of the Criminal Code - placing in danger an embarkation or aircraft, one's own or another's, or engaging in any act with tends to impede or make difficult maritime, river, or aerial navigation. The penalty is from two to five years of prison. With the aggravation of the deaths of the passengers on the Gol airplane, the penalty can reach six years. ...

Text of the Judge's Decision

JUDICIAL POWER

FEDERAL COURT OF MATO GROSSO

JUDICIAL SUBSECTION OF SINOP

JUDGE OF THE SINGLE COURTROOM

TRIAL Nº: 2007.36.03.002400-5

CLASS: 13101 – CRIMINAL TRIAL

AUTHOR: PUBLIC PROSECUTORS' OFFICE

DEFENDANTS: JOMARCELO FERNANDES DOS SANTOS, LUCIVANDO TIBÚRCIO DE ALENCAR, LEANDRO JOSÉ SANTOS DE BARROS, FELIPE SANTOS DOS REIS, JOSEPH LEPORE AND JAN PAUL PALADINO

Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, though their regularly appointed defenders, formulate a request in the following terms: "the petitioners request the adoption of the measures necessary for the realization of the questioning of the petitioners in the United States of America, on the terms provided by the agreement for cooperation between the two countries".

This is the report.

The request formulated here by the defenders of the accused foreigners has already, strictly speaking, been considered when the indictment was accepted. Mention was made, on that occasion, of a precedent by the STJ entirely similar to the case which is being considered in the present criminal trial.

This is the essence of the precedent: "The International Agreement under consideration has as its purpose to facilitate the cooperation and the combating of crime by Brazil and the United States of America, when it is necessary for the practice of acts by one of them in the other's interest. It does not intend, however, to alter the form in which the procedural acts are practiced in the State's territory, so much so that the legislation which performs the act must always be respected. The citation and the serving will be performed, in foreign territory, according the the legislation of that State; but the interrogation, if it is determined that it should be undertaken in Brazil, will follow Brazilian rules" (HC 63.350, referee Ministro Félix Fischer).

To ground its request, the defense invokes the dispositions contained in articles VIII and X of Decree nº 3.810, of February 21, 2001 (Mutual Assistance Agreement in Criminal Matters between the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Government of the United States of America).

The reference to the second disposition (art. X) was perhaps made with the idea of saying (this is not made very clear in the petition) that provision for the citation of the North American citizens has the nature of a mere "invitation", without the procedural effects carried by a motion for citation. This, however, is not the best understanding. What the Treaty says, in article X, is that the requesting state asks for the presence of the person and the requested state "invites" him to appear, as if wanting to emphasize that the State of origin of the citizen whose presence is requested overseas does not oblige him to attend to the call. But this in nothing removes the legal character of the act coming from the requesting State: if the act is a citation, it continues to be a citation even if, in the requested state, only "an invitation" is made to the defendant; if it is an intimation, it continues to be an intimation; if it is a notification, it continues to be a notification and so forth.

The citation of the defendants, therefore, is in no way harmed by the manner in which, in the United States, they were served. It matters little if the American authority charges with the serving of the papers made an appeal or simply presented the defendants with a judicial writ. What matters is that, for the respective procedural effects, is the following: the accused were called to appear at a judicial hearing to answer to the terms of the criminal charge proposed by the Federal Prosecutor's Office. This act has a name; it's called a citation. "Citation is the calling of the defendant to the judge, giving him knowledge of the bringing of a legal action, charging him with a criminal infraction, as well as offering him the opportunity to defend himself personally through a technical defense" (NUCCI. Guilherme de Souza. Commented Code of Criminal Procedure [Código de Processo Penal Comentado]. São Paulo: Editora Revista dos Tribunais, p. 613).

O inciso VIII do Tratado de Cooperação é mencionado para dizer que o juiz brasileiro poderá realizar o interrogatório nos EUA. Eis o texto: "O Estado requerido permitirá a presença de pessoas indicadas na solicitação, no decorrer do atendimento à solicitação, e permitirá que essas pessoas apresentem perguntas a serem feitas à pessoa que dará o testemunho ou apresentará as provas".

Here it is impossible not to make a defense of national jurisdiction. What the defendants intend, with this request, is to be heard in their territory. It happens that, in foreign territory, a Brazilian judge, as a rule, does not have jurisdiction. It is not without motive that the treaty, on treating the activity of the Brazilian authority who is in the United States of America hearing someone, affirms that the responding State will 'permit' that these persons present questions.

Who will permit? Certainly an authority of the foreign state (in this case, the USA). The Brazilian authority, therefore, should ask permission of the American judge so that he can ask the questions that he considers convenient to put to the defendants. If the case if one of mere "permission", obviously the request can be denied (the American authority can, strictly, tell the Brazilian judge "your question is denied"). The Brazilian judge who is there, therefore, would not be precisely a judge, he would be a '"half-judge", excusing the clarity. A judge without jurisdiction is not a judge. If a Judge needs to ask another (foreigner or not) permission to ask a question it's because he is not invested with any state power at all", he completed.

There is still another consideration. Article 368 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which foresees the citation of an accused who is in a known place overseas, does not say, at any moment, that the interrogation will not be performed in Brazil. The legal disposition only disciplines the form in which the suspension of the statute of limitations is counted, 'until its fulfillment'. The expression 'fulfillment' refers to the performance of the citation overseas; not to the performance of the interrogation. This is, furthermore, the line of reasoning which guided the decision of the Superior Tribunal of Justice, that is referred to.

The realization of an interrogation by means of "video conference", for its part, also is shown to not be possible. The second Division of the Supreme Federal Tribunal recently decided on the unconstitutionality of this procedure. In the majority decision the eminent Justice Cezar Peluso left the following specified: "When the normal exercise of self-defense is impeded, by the act of adopting a procedure (video conference) not even provided for in law, a restriction to criminal defense has been made, while incompatible with the regulations contained in art. 5º, LV, of the Constitution of the Republic, which leads to the absolute nullity of the trial...." (HC 88.914-0-SP).

The defense of the accused Americans has just informed the judge (in a petition sent by fax) that they will not appear for the hearing. In light of this information, contact has already been established with the illustrious President of the City Council, alderman Sinéia Abreu, releasing the Legislative House to operate normally on Monday. There remain, for Tuesday (28/08/2007), the interrogations of the Brazilians accused. On Monday, I will deliberate over the absence, at the act of interrogation, of Messrs. Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino.

I deny, therefore, grounded on these terms, the request made by the accused Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino.

Sinop/MT, August 24, 2007.

MURILO MENDES

Substitute Federal Judge, with full jurisdiction in the single courtroom of Sinop-MT

###

Brazil's Aviation Crisis, 11 Months Later

2007-08-23T14:16:00.000-04:00

Without comment except: What a difference 11 months makes. (Via Brazzil.com, Brazil Magazine.

###

'Everything Was Not Fine..."

2007-08-15T07:26:00.000-04:00

Without comment, here is the transcript of a speech given at the 53rd annual Air Safety and Security Forum of the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) by Joel Weiss, a Long Island lawyer and former prosecutor who is representing Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino. The two falsely accused pilots, who were in attendance at the event last week in Washington, were given a five-minute standing ovation after Mr. Weiss's speech:

"WHAT JAN PALADINO AND JOE LEPORE KNEW WHEN THEY TOOK

OFF ON SEPTEMBER 29 WAS THAT AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL HAD

CHANGED THEIR WRITTEN FLIGHT PLAN., AND CLEARED THEM TO FLIGHT

LEVEL 370 TO EDUARDO GOMES AIRPORT, THEIR DESTINATION.

WHEN THEY CHECKED IN AT BRASILIA CENTER AT 370, THEY THOUGHT,

BECAUSE THEY WERE TOLD, THAT EVERYTHING WAS FINE.

BUT EVERYTHING WAS NOT FINE. WHAT JAN AND JOE DIDN'T

KNOW AND COULDN'T KNOW WAS THIS:

FIRST, AN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER MONITORING THEM AT

BRASILIA CENTER SAW ON HIS SCREEN "'L 370 = FL 360"; AND FOR

SOME UNKNOWN REASON HE CHANGED THE DATA STRIP TO READ "FL

360 = FL 360." HE THEN WENT OFF DUTY AFTER ERRONEOUSLY

INFORMING HIS RELIEF AND THE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEM THAT

THE LEGACY WAS AT 36,000 FEET AND EVERYTHING WAS JUST FINE.

THE SECOND THING JAN AND JOE DIDN'T KNOW AND WEREN'T

TOLD WAS THAT AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL'S SCREENS HAD NO

TRANSPONDER RETURN ON THEM FOR 55 MINUTES; AND HAD DONE

NOTHING IN RESPONSE TO THAT.

THE THIRD THING THEY DIDN'T KNOW WAS THAT THEY WERE

ENTERING WHAT BRAZILIAN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS HAVE

DESCRIBED AS A "DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND AREA" WHEREIN RADIO AND

RADAR ARE COMPROMISED.

FINALLY, THEY CRITICALLY AND TRAGICALLY DIDN'T KNOW THAT

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL HAD CHANGED THE CLEARANCE OF A GOL 7371)

HEADING THEIR WAY, FROM FLIGHT LEVEL 4 .0 TO 370.

THE TWO AIRCRAFT SUFFERED A GLANCING COLLISION, SO LIMITED

THAT NO ONE ON THE LEGACY KNEW JUST WHAT HAD HAPPENED. THEY

WERE ABLE TO MAKE AN EMERGENCY LANDING AT CACHIMBO

MILITARY BASE. UNBEKNOWNST TO THEM, THE GOL 737 HAD GONE

DOWN. HERE IS WHAT PASSENGER AND JOURNALIST JOE SHARKEY SAID

IN AN INTERVIEW:

"WE NEVER SERIOUSLY SPECULATED THAT WE COULD

HAVE BEEN IN A COLLISION WITH A BIG AIRPLANE. IT

WAS SIMPLY AN IMPOSSIBILITY, GIVEN THE FACT THAT

WE SURVIVED. ABOUT THREE HOURS LATER, IN A

DINING HALL, WE DID LEARN THE TRUTH - THAT A 737

HAD GONE DOWN AT THE SAME SPOT. WE STOOD FOR A

MOMENT OF PRAYER. THERE WAS SOBBING. THE

PILOTS WERE DEVASTATED. I'VE NEVER SEEN TWO

MORE ANGUISHED MEN."

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? JAN AND JOE HAD THEIR PASSPORTS

TAKEN AND WERE TOLD, "DON'T LEAVE TOWN." THIS WENT ON FOR 71

DAYS UNTIL BRAZIL'S FEDERAL COURT DECREED THAT THEIR BEING

DETAINED WAS UNLAWFUL AND THEY COULD LEAVE.

AND NEXT? THEY WERE INDICTED FOR THE CRIMINALLY

NEGLIGENT DESTRUCTION OF AN AIRCRAFT, CAUSING DEATH. THEY ARE

NOW FACING TRIAL AND POTENTIAL IMPRISONMENT. ON THESE FACTS.

HERE IS WHAT YOU, ALPA, SAID IN A JUNE 8 RELEASE IN

RESPONSE TO THIS INDICTMENT:

"THE THREAT OF CRIMINAL PROSECUTION THWARTS

INFORMATION GATHERING AND DATA SHARING, WHICH

FORM THE FOUNDATION OF ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION.

EXPOSING PROFESSIONAL AIRMEN TO PROSECUTION

FOR ALLEGED MISTAKES IS MISGUIDED AND

INCOMPATIBLE WITH PREVENTING FUTURE ACCIDENTS.

`THE BRAZILIAN JUDGE'S ACTION ALSO BLATANTLY

DISREGARDS THE INTERNATIONAL GUIDANCE OF ICAO

ANNEX 131 WHICH STATES THAT "THERE SHOULD BE NO

CRIMINAL LIABILITY WITHOUT INTENT TO DO HARM.'

THE BRAZILIAN JUSTICE SYSTEM IS NOT ACTING IN ITS

COUNTRY'S BEST INTERESTS IF IT FAILS TO RESPECT

INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPLES AGREED TO BY NATIONS

AROUND THE GLOBE."

ONE CAN LOOK AT THE INCIDENTS AND REVELATIONS ABOUT BRAZIL'S

AIR SAFETY SINCE THEN AND SAY: HOW PROPHETIC; AND HOW VERY

SAD.

AS TO JAN AND JOE, THE PERSONAL COST OF CRIMINALIZATION IS

GREAT. IT INVOLVES LOST SLEEP OVER THIS PROSECUTION, INCLUDING

WHETHER BRAZIL, IN CONTRAVENTION OF OUR TREATY, MIGHT TRY TO

EXTRADITE THEM.

ON THE OTHER HAND, THEY HAVE HAD SOME TREMENDOUS

SUPPORT: FROM EXCELAIRE, THEIR EMPLOYER, AND FROM THE AIR

SAFETY AND PILOTS ORGANIZATIONS, NOTABLY YOURS.

YOUR SUPPORT IS PARAMOUNT. YOU ALL DO IMPORTANT,

CRITICAL, AND AT TIMES RISKY woRK. AND AS TO THIS TREND OF

CRIMINALIZATION, YOU ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

THE POET, JOHN DONNE, SAID, "NO MAN IS AN ISLAND." SOME OF

YOU MIGHT SIMPLY LOOK AT JAN AND JOE AND SAY, ``THERE BUT FOR

THE GRACE OF GOD GO I."

ON BEHALF OF JAN AND JOE, I EXPRESS THEIR GRATITUDE FOR

YOUR CONTINUING SUPPORT. THANK YOU.

###

Brazil's Air Traffic Control: 'Outdated' and Dysfunctional

2007-08-01T17:30:00.000-04:00

I overlooked this report in late June on a blog called ATC Brasil.

###

Aviation Group: Don't Create Another 'Absurdity'

2007-08-01T17:15:00.001-04:00

The National Syndicate of Aeronauts is calling on Brazil not to criminalize the recent TAM airline crash that killed 199 at Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo, to avoid repeating what it calls the "absurdity" following the Sept. 29 mid-air collision that killed 154 over the Amazon, in which the government and police rushed to criminally blame the American pilots (and subsequently also changed a handful of air traffic controllers).

The statement:

"The National Syndicate of Aeronauts (SNA) declares that it is going to the Minister of Justice to ask for the removal of police institutions from the investigation into the accident with the TAM airplane.

The experience with the criminalization of the GOL accident, in which Air Traffic Controllers were indicted for an intentional crime, is considered an absurdity by the SNA, which repudiates that situation and alerts society to the possibility of our having Aviation Accident Final Reports deficiently or incompletely produced because of the interference of institutions foreign to the CENIPA investigation.

We counsel a completely independent organization for the investigation of air traffic control accidents, assisting the Presidency of the Republic, so that the country can be in harmony with what is foreseen in the 1944 Chicago Convention, to which Brazil is a signatory, and which regulates, through Annex 13 of ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization, the investigation of accidents and the protection of Flight Safety information, this last situation recommended by Appendix E of the cited annex.

The SNA calls society's attention to the need to safeguard the work of the CENIPA Investigative Commission from any sort of external pressure, to allow the discovery of the real factors that contributed to the GOL and TAM accidents, since it is this commission's responsibility to issue safety recommendations, preventive instruments that can avoid other identical accidents.

The National Syndicate of Aeronauts also warns of the current use of crew members at the limits of Professional Regulation because of the airlines' new management model which has more condensed route networks and uses aircraft on the order of 14 hours per day. It was emphasized that obeying the regulations covering aeronauts is an import item in maintaining Operational Safety.

As a final point, the syndicate declares that it is in favor of construction work at Guarulhos International Airport, with some reservations, and defends the construction of both the third runway and the third passenger terminal as part of the actions which will permit the increase in demand with the redistribution of flights from Congonhas Airport.

Verdict Is In; Investigation Continues. Notes From Last Week

2007-07-28T17:01:00.000-04:00

More legal notes from Down the Rabbit Hole...

I'll be posting the text of the congressional report on the Sept. 29 disaster in a few days, mistranslations, distortions and all.

Meanwhile, while the two American pilots (and a couple of flight controllers thrown in for face-saving some time later) have already been criminally indicted in the courts and found resoundingly guilty in the media and in the government, it's interesting (if possibly irrelevant) to note that the investigation continues at a speedy pace in Brazil.

(Again, let me note that the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States knows exactly what happened, and is sitting on its hands pleading "procedure" while the Brazilian legal travesty continues. And the United States State Department remains, as it has been from day one, passive as the pilots are being scapegoated.)

I was sidetracked for much of last week with a family illness. Here are some notes from last week, via Richard Pedicini in our Sao Paulo bureau:

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Brasil/0,,AA1594366-5598,00.html

INVESTIGATION OF GOL ACCIDENT SHOULD TAKE 12 MONTHS

The Director of the Center for the Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautic Accidents (Cenipa), brigadier Jorge Kersul Filho, said that the Air Force estimates that it will finalize its investigation into the Gol Boeing accident in the period of 12 months after the date of the accident. The Gol crash occurred on September 29 of last year after colliding with a Legacy in upstate Pará.

According to him, the average time that the aeronautic investigation of this sort of accident requires, worldwide, is 18 months.

"We are trying to finish in 12 months, a length of time we consider extremely reasonable", he said. The brigadier affirmed that the information collected by the Air Force will serve only for the families [of the victims, who are suing the American pilots and their employer, ExcelAire, in an American court, because America is where the money is] to understand what happened that day.

"If the objective is to seek indemnities or guilty parties the place for that isn't Cenipa", he affirmed. He emphasized that aeronautic investigations "are completely different and independent"of criminal investigations.

[Note the delusional logic there: Only in Brazil can they justify completing a criminal investigation into the causes of an air crash while at the same time bragging that the allegedly "independent" aeronautical investigation is incomplete, though moving speedily along. If not on the aeronautical facts of the accident, what was the basis of the criminal investigation? Oh, silly me: There was desperation to quickly railroad the Americans and cover up the malfeasance of Brazil's government in operating its air-traffic system. In official Brazil, as has been said here before, nobody is responsible for anything].

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Brasil/0,,MUL76446-5598,00.html

Relatives of victims of Gol fear that authorities will "forget" accident

Angelita Rosicler De Marchi will demand more investigation into the crash of flight 1907 She want to avoid investigation of September 2006 accident being paralyzed.

Glauco Araújo of G1, in São PauloPara Angelita Rosicler De Marchi, president of the Association of Relatives of the Victims of Flight 1907, the crash of the Tam Airbus, which happened last week in São Paulo, may provoke the emptying of the investigation of the Gol Boeing accident, which fell in Mato Grosso, in September of 2006, and claimed 154 victims.

"The work is going to continue strongly for the moving forward of the investigation of the causes of the crash of the Gol Boeing. We are also following closely the investigation in to the case of the TAM. We fear that everything will be forgotten. We aren't going to let this happen", said Angelita, who took over the presidency of the association on July 14.

She affirmed that it is inevitable that there be a closeness of the association with relatives of the victims on the TAM accident. "They are the country's two largest aviation accidents, but we know, at the moment, that they happened in different manners. The Gol accident should have provoked in the country's authorities a better control of Brazilian air space, flight safely and the Brazilian aviation network to the point that a new accident would not happen."

Relatives of passengers of Flight 1907 live through drama the day after Gol Boeing accident[...] She affirmed that she does not have an idea of uniting the families in a single association. "We won't do this, this isn't our rolle. We only want them to follow paths less difficult than ours. The two accidents have completely different details."

The directors of the Association of Relatives of Victims of the Gol Accident should meet in the next few days to draft actions to make demands in the investigation of the Gol crash, which happened ten months ago on the 29th. "We still haven't defined what we will demand from the authorities. If they had not acted with carelessness, perhaps the TAM accident would not have occurred," said Angelita.

http://novoemfolha.folha.blog.uol.com.br/

[This seems to be a blog for the newspaper's trainees.]

24/07/2007

Airplane news desk

Igor Gielow, managing editor of the Folha's Brasilia bureau , commented to me last week that the current aviation chaos is creating a new team of journalists, those specialized in airplanes, runways, air traffic control, etc. I asked him to tell this better to the readers of Nova in Folha.

Here it is:

After the accidents [...]Discernment is needed not only to reproduce information in the newspaper, however good they may be. It's also necessary to interpret them, in the light of the suspicion of specific interests (in the case of the Gol, the arm-wrestling between the controllers and the Air Force, or also the official intention of blaming the Americans a priori, for example; in the current case, the Federal Government's terror of seeing the Congonhas runway, its responsibility, as being to blame for the accident) and also to put technical data in context.
[...]

[Italics mine]

###

Better He Should Deliver Himself to a Safe Aviation System

2007-07-26T08:24:00.000-04:00

Quote of the day, uttered by President Luiz Inacio Lula ("Lucky Lula") da Silva as he swore in the replacement to Wonderful Waldir Pires, fired yesterday as defense minister, whose duties included running Brazil's (still chaotic) commercial aviation system. (That's Lucky Lula, right, kitted out in his splendid sash like the Generalissimo of the School Safety Patrol).

"Every time the airplane door closes, I deliver myself to God," the president said.

###

Waldir We Hardly Knew Ye

2007-07-25T15:40:00.000-04:00

Waldir Pires, the Brazilian defense minister who has been in charge of the country's aviation system, was fired today as air-traffic chaos worsened after the most recent disaster last week.

Pires, who is in his 80s, has been mocked in this space as "Wonderful Waldir" since last October, when he steadfastly refused to assign any blame to Brazilian air-traffic control or Brazilian aviation for the Sept. 29 mid-air collision between a commercial 737 and a business jet that killed 154 over the Amazon.

For far longer than any reasonable person should have done -- and especially a person in charge of an aviation system that was manifestly unsafe -- Pires pursued a policy of criminalizing and politicizing the Sept. 29 accident.

As he did that, he failed to address or even acknowledge the fact that the accident was caused by technical faults in Brazil's air traffic system and by air traffic controllers who assigned both planes to a collision course at 37,000 feet in an area over the Amazon where radio and radar dead zones are known to exist. Wonderful Waldir, of course, denied they exist.

Pires was fired by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula ("Lucky Lula") de Silva -- I call him "Lucky" because the Sept. 29 accident and the resulting orchestrated anti-American furor gave him a toe-hold in a presidential run-off election that he went on to win. Lucky Lula allowed this scandal to continue unchecked while his nation's aviation system became exposed as a disgrace around the world.

Firing a clueless old man won't fix the problem, and it's clear that Lucky Lula is stalling for time while Brazilians' fury over a collapsed air-traffic system mounts.

And two American pilots remain falsely criminally accused in an accident that never, ever should have been criminalized to begin with.

Wonderful Waldir did have his moment, incidentally. As a presidential aide, he publicly took a courageous stand in 1964 against the military coup that led to a 22-year military dictatorship in Brazil. That coup, supported by the U.S. government, was perhaps the seed of his anti-Americanism.

But that was 1964 and that was a very long time ago. Wonderful Waldir was malfeasant in railroading two American pilots. He was a fool in not summoning the simple courage to admit what went wrong and talk about how to fix it.

And as the man in charge when Brazil's aviation system collapsed, he did nothing to alleviate it. All he did was look for people to blame -- without looking in the mirror or at his patron in the presidential palace.

So give Wonderful Waldir his gold watch.

And tell him not to let the door hit him in the ass on his way out.

###

Brazil to International Controllers: Drop Dead!

2007-07-23T16:48:00.000-04:00

Without comment ...

The International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations, representing air traffic controllers around the world, continued criticizing Brazil for its poor aviation safety record yesterday and suggested that "foreign experts should intervene" to ensure safe skies, according to Reuters.

"Brazilian authorities are too busy trying to save face. They're putting the traveling public at risk," Reuters quoted the group's president, Marc Baumgartner, as saying.

Jose Carlos Pereira, the head of Brazil's airport authority, called the international air controllers group "a bunch of idiots wanting to intervene in our affairs," Reuters reported. "Brazil doesn't need international help. They should care for their air space and we'll take care of ours," he said.

Brazzil.com quoted Pereira as adding: "It certainly was a tragedy, but it was our tragedy."

--ends

Do They Ever Take Responsibility for Anything?

2007-07-23T09:19:00.000-04:00

Ten months after the fiasco that followed the Sept. 29 crash and less than a week after the latest air disaster in Sao Paulo, Brazilian authorities have siezed on what aviation experts call a red herring to shift blame away from themselves.

As usual.

In the political fallout after last Tuesday's crash of a TAM A320 killed about 200 at Sao Paulo's Congonhas Airport, the investigation of the crash is shifting from the well-known unsafe conditions at the airport to a thrust reverser on the A320 that had been disconnected four days before the crash.

According to an Associated Press report, landing with only one reverser operating is "not unusual." Upon hearing of the thrust reverser issue, Marco Aurelio Garcia, an aide to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, made a gleeful obscene gesture for TV cameras that was seen as signaling relief that blame could be shifted to the airline.

Hey, the Americans-Turned-Off-the-Transponder ploy worked after Sept. 29 (after other feints at blame-shifting -- the infamous Aerial Maneuvers ploy and the Failure to Follow Flight Plan ploy -- failed to gain wide political traction).

So why not a thrust-reverser red herring? Whatever flies with the public.

For sure, the public is having a hard enough time flying itself in Brazil.

--end

No Serenity in Brazil's Skies

2007-07-22T14:52:00.000-04:00

There is no joy in this, and no sense of vindication. I hammer on the worsening aviation chaos in Brazil for two reasons only:

One, Brazilian authorities have criminally scapegoated two innocent American pilots while ludicrously insisting that Brazil's air-traffic control and aviation systems are safe and adequate.

Two, Americans traveling to Brazil, or planning to, really need current information that they're not getting from any of the usual suspects in the lah-dee-dah U.S. travel media.

Air travel in Brazil, which has been a mess since the Sept. 29 mid-air collision that killed 154 over the Amazon, has further deteriorated since last Tuesday's crash that killed 200 at the notoriously unsafe Congonhas Airport in the center of Sao Paulo.

With operations sharply curtailed at Congonhas (South America's busiest airport) and with continuing breakdowns of air-traffic control radar systems over the Amazon, air travel in Brazil is a nightmare. And it's getting worse, not better, as flights back up after long delays and cancellations.

On Saturday, over a quarter of the flights from Congonhas were cancelled, according to FlightStats.com. For the day, Conhongas logged an on-time departure rate of 19 percent. At Guarulhos International Airport, where most international flights operate, the on-time departure rate was 17 percent Saturday. Only 35 percent of arrivals came in on time.

The radar breakdown forced American Airlines to divert 13 Brazil-bound planes that had departed from New York, Miami and Dallas, the Associated Press reported. Delta cancelled at least two flights.

After the latest disaster, the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations issued a sharp condemnation of the Brazilian government's failure to address the glaring safety problems that were underscored by the Sept. 29 crash, which occurred when air-traffic control ordered two aircraft to fly at 37,000 feet in what would become a collision couse, and failed to monitor the situation.

"The Brazilian government has focused much energy in chasing scapegoats instead of re-engineering the necessary safety oversight and risk assessment to prevent Brazilian civil aviation from falling into deeper chaos," said the organization's president, Marc Baumgartner, who added:

"By delegating safety oversight, safety management and safety provision to the [Air Force], the Brazilian government is endangering the lives of the traveling public in Brazil.

"Warnings on the conditions at the airport in Congonhas have repeatedly been ignored by the authorities.

"[Brazil's aviation system] is a danger to the traveling public, the Brazilian economy and the credibility of the Brazilian state as a great nation of this world. Continuing to ignore internationally agreed standards on air traffic management and airport design (layout) will only lead to further hardship and possibly more accidents."

How bad is it, really, in Brazil?

Last week, Brazilian authorities announced they had retrieved the flight recorder from the wreckage of the Tam Airlines A320 that crashed on Tuesday and sent it to a laboratory in the U.S. for analysis.

Oops, turns out it wasn't the flight recorder at all. It was just a piece of the fuselage.

And then came the report that flight controllers were breaking down in tears.

From Brazzil.com:

"While the Brazilian Air Force said there was no risk for the planes during the [radar] breakdown, a flight controller, who asked for anonymity, disagrees and told Globo TV that airplanes were left overflying the Amazon blindly.

"According to this controller, there was a risk of collision for two aircraft that were going to Belem, capital of Para state [My note: the damaged Legacy 600 managed to make an emergency landing in the jungle in southern Para state after the mid-air collision on Sept. 29]. Another controller revealed that some of his colleagues panicked and a few started crying due to the situation."

My note: I hate to be accused in Brazil of being insensitive once more, but the last time we heard of air traffic controllers crying was well after the authorities had blamed the American pilots for the Sept. 29 crash. When the authorities were finally forced to also consider the manifest problems at air traffic control, controllers called in sick en masse and refused to talk. Only then did we hear about crying. Unfortunately, none of the controllers who knew exactly what happened in that control center stood up for the falsely accused American pilots when it counted.

--end

That's the Ticket: Serenity Now, Dammit!

2007-07-21T08:37:00.000-04:00

Lucky Lula with his sporty sash and patriotic lapel flag-pin

Jon Lovitz's Saturday Night Live character Tommy Flanagan (pronounced "Fla-NAY-gan") followed each chronic lie with the exclamation: "Yeah ... that's the ticket!"

Oct. 1, 2006, was election day in Brazil. Anti-Americanism, always simmering below the surface, had bubbled up in a rage.

Two days earlier, 154 people on a Brazilian airliner had died in the Amazon after a mid-air collision with an American private jet flown by two American pilots.

Through some extraordinarily fickle toss of fate, all seven on the private jet survived.

Within a day after the Sept. 29 disaster, politicians and the Brazilian military, along with their Amen Chorus in the media, were blaming the Americans as the election fast approached.

Emotion was heated.

Never mind that both airplanes had been put on a collision course at 37,000 feet by Brazilian air traffic control, or that it was already well-known that, through a combination of lassitude and corruption, Brazil's air trafic control system (run by the military, of course) was broken down, both in personnel and equipment.

Radar and radio dead zones over the Amazon? Controllers asleep at the switch? Hah! A slander by the Americans to avoid accepting the blame for the accident -- blame that, by election day, and even as bodies were still being carried out from the remote jungle, was already firmly assigned to the American pilots.

Lucky Lula -- Luis Inacio Lula da Silva -- managed to squeek into a run-off election, and later was re-elected President. Many observers thought that the deftly manipulated emotion surrounding the Sept. 29 accident (which still runs high) was the reason he slid back into office.

Now we have a new tragic disaster in the same broken-down aviation system, which has been in a state of chaos since Sept. 29. Two hundred more are dead in a plane crash, bringing the total death toll for two aviation disasters in the last 10 months to over 350.

Finally Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, three days silent after the new disaster, roused himself to speak to his nation.

The real problem, Lucky Lula told the people, is that Congonhas Airport, South America's busiest airport, located in the congested center of São Paulo city, where the Tuesday disaster occurred, is in the wrong place.

And so a new airport, said Lucky Lula, shall be built!

Cue the crowd roar! Hurrah for Lucky Lula, master builder!

Now, Lucky Lula -- perhaps under the rhetorical influence of his sometime-buddy George ("I Like Starting Wars But I Avoided Serving in One Myself") Bush -- had no details to offer on when this marvelous feat might be accomplished. It takes at least a decade, as a rule, to build a big airport, assuming a competent effort is undertaken. Nor did Lucky Lula suggest how much this new marvel of first-world aviation would cost (counting what inevitably will be stolen).

Maybe George Bush, himself tragically unable to employ cheap anti-American sentiment to boost himself in the polls, should get an emerald-and-gold sash just like that soignee number Lucky Lula sometimes sports. (By the way, it does take a degree of fashion-daring for a democratically elected president to accessorize himself with a gaudy gold sash, looking like some Generalissimo of the School Safety Patrol, in a country that was ruled by a strutting, ribbon-bedecked military dictatorship just 22 years ago).

Perhaps under the cognitive influence of his sometime-friend up north, Lucky Lula further proclaimed that, other than the tiny problem of Congonhas Airport being located in a place where landing aircraft practically brush people's apartment terraces, everything else is honky-dory! There are no systemic aviation problems! Do not believe what you read and hear in the 'reality-based world'!

"The safety level of our air system is compatible with all the international standards. We cannot lose sight of this," Lucky Lula said, despite all evidence in the universe to the contrary.

In his television address, Lucky Lula also called on Brazilians to remain "serene, so as not to commit injustices."

Meanwhile, we've also heard from the bumbling Defense Minister, Waldir Pires, whose department is in charge of air traffic control and who was among the first in the rush to scapegoat the American pilots after Sept. 29 (remember his crazy-old-coot accusation that they were performing acrobatics and other "aerial maneuvers" over the Amazon skies?)? Here is what Wonderful Waldir had to say after the most recent aviation disaster on his watch (you know, the one that did not have any Americans to blame:)

"It's a moment for caution, and until the results of the investigation are known, it's better to maintain sobriety and avoid quick judgments."

Yeah ... that's the ticket!

***

THIS JUST IN ...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - An unexplained two-hour outage at a radar facility in the Amazon forced at least four American Airlines flights from the U.S. heading to Brazil to return to Miami International airport early Saturday. ... An official with Brazil's national airport authority, Infraero, confirmed that radar under the command of the Cindacta-4 radar center headquartered in the Amazon city of Manaus went down ... "It's true, some flights were sent back to their point of origin at that time,'' [the official] said.

[My note, according to Flightstats.com, American has seven flights into Guarhulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo today. Four were turned back, and the other three haven't been tracked yet. Delta Air Lines has four flights into Guarhulhos, two of which have already been cancelled.]

--End

[Thanks, by the way, to several readers who sent me tips on how to fix the new Blogger glitch that wasn't allowing spaces between paragraphs. You hold down "Shift" and hit "Enter" twice at the end of each paragraph]

Rush to Judgment

2007-07-20T15:44:00.000-04:00

Once again, we witness the spectacle of the authorities and the media in Brazil rushing to assign blame for the horrible crash at Sao Paulo while investigators have only begun to evaluate the evidence.

As I have said, lessons have simply not been learned from the mess and chaos that followed the Sept. 29 crash, when the authorities and their amen chorus in the media fell over one another politicizing and criminalizing an accident before the bodies and the wreckage had even been removed from the Amazon.

Every world aviation authority warns against assigning blame hastily. For one thing, it creates a climate of fear and causes people who might have something useful to say to hold their tongues. It impedes the real investigation by the experts. It acts as a force against reforms. In the case of the Sept. 29 disaster, nothing was subsequently done to address the manifest problems with Brazil's air traffic control system. All of the effort went into assigning criminal blame to individuals who were themselves victims of a broken system and a bureaucracy too complacent, or too corrupt, to take responsibility and fix was what clearly broken.

After Tuesday's disaster in Sao Paulo, the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations was the first among the respected world aviation groups to note that the current reaction bears a troubling resemblance to that which occurred after Sept. 29, when efforts began to scapegoat the two American pilots (and ultimately led to also tossing in a few air-traffic controllers for good measure.)

Here is a statement from the Flight Safety Foundation:

"The Flight Safety Foundation strives to improve the quality of aviation safety press coverage around the world.

One thing we would never do is speculate as to the cause of a crash. Unfortunately, during the media frenzy of activity that followed the recent tragedy in Brazil, we were quoted in an AP article saying that the wet runway caused the crash.

This was a misquote. AP acknowledged the error immediately and has corrected thestory.

Here are the points the Flight Safety Foundation has been trying to makeabout this crash:

1. This looks like another runway excursion problem. Runway excursions are a serious safety threat that has received little attention, because until recently, they have not involved many fatalities.

2. In the Gol crash in September and the Sao Paulo crash this week, judges and politicians seem to be driving the safety system in Brazil. Politics and safety do not mix. Civil Aviation regulators must be allowed to act independently and without interference. The politicians need to step back and let the safety professionals do their job before more lives are lost.

Thank you for the opportunity to set the record straight among our respected colleagues.

Bill Voss

President and CEO

Flight Safety Foundation http://www.flightsafety.org/ "

--ends

An Editorial

2007-07-19T07:33:00.000-04:00

Those in the United States still trying to figure out how it would be possible for authorities in Brazil to railroad two innocent American pilots, and shift blame from their own misfeasance and malfeasance in running an air-traffic system, might have a look at some of the 170-plus comments attached to yesterday's innocuous post.

(Some of the most obscene ones and the direct death threats have been deleted).

Brazil is, famously, a thin-skinned country where politics are inexorably tied to public emotion, and where political skill is usually a matter of being able to manipulate that emotion. The Brazilian media are, famously, an integral part of that process.

Imagine trying to have a rational discourse in that climate. Imagine, as the two American pilots must, standing falsely accused in that climate.

On the other hand, you might note among yesterday's heated comments a good number of sensible, reasonable statements from other Brazilians, even when they disagree. And keep in mind that crazies are usually the first to react.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which knows exactly what happened on Sept. 29, is remiss in sitting on its hands and letting this farce play out in Brazil, meekly invoking garden-party protocol as an excuse for its silence.

The State Department's reaction has been effete and ineffectual since Sept. 30, when it sent a consul to Cuiaba who failed from day one to intervene in, or to even make the mildest of protests against, the illegal detention of the American pilots for what would turn out to be 71 days.

And what about the professional organizations? After some initial harrumphing about the dangers of criminalizing accidents, the International Air Line Pilots Association has gone to ground, strangely silent on articulating what every pilot who flies the Brazilian skies knows: that Brazil's aviation system is unsafe.

We haven't heard from the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers since that organization roused itself many, many months ago to decry the unsafe conditions in Brazil's air traffic control system. [Later note: The air traffic controllers group has issued a statement that's available today. It's appended at the bottom of this post]

Nor have we heard from corporate and leisure travel agents in the United States and elsewhere who are blithely dispatching travelers into manifestly unsafe skies and an unsafe air-traffic system.

The death toll now exceeds 350 in two separate aviation accidents within 10 months, both eminently preventable, both caused by Brazil's inability and disinclination to develop an aviation system that ensures safe skies.

It is time now for the world aviation community to summon the courage to speak. Before somebody else gets hurt.

Here is the statement issued yesterday by the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations:

"Air Safety Compromised in Brazil

IFATCA offers its condolences to the families of this tragic accident involving TAM, which
happened in Congonhas Airport in Sao Paolo. We received the news of this accident with horror,
but not total disbelief.

Following the mid-air collision in September 2006, this is yet another disastrous civil aviation
accident in Brazil in a short period. In both cases numerous warning signs, multiple risks and
safety relevant reports were ignored.

IFATCA has condemned the stance of the Brazilian Government to let the military FAB introduce its so called Plan B. This plan was to jail leaders of the air traffic controllers’ association and replace highly skilled and trained ATCOs by military air defense personnel who are neither
trained, nor qualified to control civilian traffic.

'How many more people will be killed before the Brazilian governments stops the FAB's live
experiments on the traveling public's safety?' says the President of IFATCA, Marc
Baumgartner.

The Brazilian government has focused much energy in chasing scapegoats
instead of re-engineering the necessary safety oversight and risk assessment to prevent
Brazilian civil aviation from falling into deeper chaos.

By delegating safety oversight, safety management and safety provision to the FAB, the Brazilian government is endangering the lives of the traveling public in Brazil. Warnings on the conditions at the airport in Congonhas have repeatedly been ignored by the authorities.

IFATCA urges the government of Brazil to stop the current repressive organizations of Air
Traffic Control and civil aviation in Brazil. Air safety is currently compromised and is a danger to the traveling public, the Brazilian economy and the credibility of the Brazilian state as a great
nation of this world. Continuing to ignore internationally agreed standards on Air Traffic
Management and Airport design (layout) will only lead to further hardship and possibly more
accidents,' warns the President of IFATCA.

IFATCA is the worldwide organization representing more than fifty thousand air traffic
controllers in over 130 countries. Amongst its goals are the promotion of safety,
efficiency and regularity in international air navigation and the protection and
safeguarding of the interests of the air traffic control profession.
www.ifatca.org

###

Lessons Not Learned

2007-07-18T06:48:00.000-04:00

Without comment:

From Folha Online today: The Governor of São Paulo, José Serra, has already ordered a criminal investigation of the accident, by the State Prosecutors' Office and the Civil Police, he says he expects the aviation sector authorities to investigate the case as well.

From a statement by the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations (IALPA) criticizing the criminalization of the Sept. 29 accident as "fundamentally flawed:"

"IFALPA believes that in any accident it is vital that an independent technical investigation carried out by experts in air accident investigation must be completed before any criminal or civil action is pursued. To pre-empt the results of a expert technical investigation with a judicial investigation which may not be technically competent is counter productive to improvement of air safety."

Also see this 2002 report for the National Transportation Safety Bar Association on the dangers of criminalizing an aviation accident unless clear criminal intent is evident from the start.

-end

Plane Crash at Sao Paulo Airport

2007-07-17T19:01:00.000-04:00

This just in, via AP:

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A plane carrying at least 150 people crashed after landing at Sao Paulo's Congonhas Airport Tuesday, Brazil's airport authority said.

The TAM airline's Airbus-320 skidded off the runway and crashed into buildings outside Congonhas airport, said Jose Leonardi Mota, a spokesman with airport authority Infraero.
Mota said the flight originated in the southern city of Porto Alegre.

--end

Kongressional Kapers

2007-07-17T06:56:00.001-04:00

The Brazilian congress's Sears-catalogue-sized report on the accident is under translation. This is a report, heavily dependent on the previous Federal Police report, prepared by people who have no aviation expertise, and no special kowledge of what happened over the Amazon last Sept. 29.

Furthermore, these reports are by people who are willfully defying international aviation protocols that say it is improper to criminalize an aviation accident before the official, professional investigations are concluded.

Remember, however, that the authorities in Brazil do have motive, means and opportunity to abet the ongoing scapegoating of the American pilots.

Here is one small example of just how invincibly dishonest, or stupid (or both) this process is.

The Brazilian congress's report repeats the Federal Police mistranslations of portions of the pilot-to-pilot conversations on the cockpit voice recorder of the Legacy 600.

At the time stamp 19:20:32.6, co-pilot Jan Paladino says to captain Joe Lepore: "Get my sunglasses in the back. Mind if I do that?"

Lepore replies: "No, go ahead."

However, the Federal Police translated "No, go ahead" as "Don't proceed."

Now the congressional report goes one better and drops the question altogether and quotes only the sentence "Don't proceed" as a stand-alone exclamation, saying that it "reveals insecurity" in the operation of the plane.

The report itself, from what I've read so far, is a convoluted mess of obtuse definitions and harrumphing jurisdictional hair-splittings.

But every so often the report tosses a curve ball. Such as this preposterous assertion (oops, down the rabbit hole we go again) that, while a defendant's disinclination to answer prosecutorial questions is not to be seen as an indication of guilt, it is in fact an indication of guilt.

"Even though the legal system keeps any accused under the shelter of the principle of ample defense, which includes the right to silence, without allowing this to be interpreted against his defense, it is evident that positive law cannot impede that, intuitively, before each concrete case, one cannot conclude the blame of those who, using this legal prerogative, refuse to testify, because, if there was nothing against their conduct, they would not have motives to avoid speaking about the facts they witnessed, as happens with the Legacy pilots.

Therefore, it is evident that the deliberate silence of the North American pilots of the Legacy, can induce the conclusion of the existence of responsibility on their part in the tragic accident."

Say what?

(Translations via Richard Pedicinin in Sao Paulo)

--ends

Let's Play Whac-a-Mole

2007-07-16T10:03:00.000-04:00

It's a slow news day in Brazil, as the authorities gear up for another week of bashing the Americans who failed to "ensure the safety of Brazilian skies." (Yes, that's a direct quote from the charges already filed against the two American pilots, though it seems to me that we all must be guilty, in that Brazilian skies are manifestly not safe).

I'm already hearing that the congressional geniuses have freely garbled key transcriptions from the Legacy cockpit voice recorder in the lengthy report they are expected to release this week.

So let's play Whac-a-Mole!

Have fun while we wait for the Brazilian congress to emit a gaseous cloud of unfounded accusations later this week.

Why Whac-a-Mole? As we've been saying, in this case in Brazil every time an accusation is firmly rebutted by clear evidence and pounded firmly into a hole, up it pops up from a new hole).

--end

Brazil's Unsafe Air Traffic Technology, False Alarms and Aerial Maneuvers

2007-07-15T18:07:00.000-04:00

Jungle crash site of Gol 737 (above left). Legacy 600 after landing at Amazon air base (above right)

They keep insisting, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that Brazilian air space over the Amazon is well protected by air traffic control. After all, the Air Force spent $1.7 billion a few years ago on new technology to fix the problem of black radio holes and blind radar spots.

Now consider this excerpt from the current Veja, the weekly news magazine of Brazil. Translation by Richard Pedicini:

"The system that cost $1.7 billion is constantly breaking down, brings risks to aviation, and is not capable of watching the Amazon.

... The system does not operate in minimally acceptable conditions for commercial aviation nor for military ends.

Its radars suffer constant breakdowns. When this happens, the screens show airplanes that don't exist and incorrectly inform the direction and velocity of aircraft which are, in fact in air space.

One Air Force report obtained by VEJA reveals that, at the beginning of the decade, these breakdowns were tolerated, because "few aircraft flew in the region." Since then, aerial traffic has increased and the frequency of breakdowns, too.

One example of the risk through which the people who fly over the Amazon pass is the episode that occurred last March 27, at the headquarters of Cindacta 4, in Manaus.

For twenty seconds, the flight-control console [falsely] indicated that a TAM Airbus A330 had collided in midair with a Gol Boeing 737-800 between the cities of Sinop, in Mato Grosso, and Cachimbo, in Pará. [My note: this is the area over the Amazon where the Gol 737 and the Legacy 600 would collide for real on Sept. 29]

Before indicating the disaster, the system showed more than 100 sudden changes of velocity, direction and altitude, as if the jets were performing acrobatic maneuvers.

All the information was false, including that of the accident. But, when the alarm sounded, the flight controller who monitored the planes went into shock. "The danger is in a controller ignoring a real danger, due to the constant signaling of false alarms,"alerts the document of the Air Force Command. "

--ends

Whac-a-Mole Redux

2007-07-13T10:09:00.000-04:00

I thought it was soccer, but the Boardwalk arcade game Whac-a-Mole has to be the national sport in Brazil. You whack, or rather pound, the critter into one hole, thinking at least that's been dispatched with. But then -- Whac-a-Mole! -- up it pops up again from another hole.

Aware that the existing indictment of the American pilots on charges of non-intentionally causing the Sept. 29 crash would allow the pilots to avoid extradition to and a trial in Brazil, some Brazilian authorities are now talking up the possibility of ratcheting up the charge to one that would meet the standards under the extradition treaty between the United States and Brazil.

Remember that the federal prosecutor has already made it clear in the existing indictment that there is no evidence that the American pilots (assuming they did anything wrong) acted either recklessly or intentionally. But now the Brazilian congress is making snorting noises.

In a draft report that has not yet been approved by vote, an investigative panel of the Brazilian house of representatives appears to be demanding a new indictment that would charge the pilots with malicious reckless endangerment.

Assuming insane people prevail (and we see all around us that they sometimes do), doing this would mean that Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino -- who are not required by treaty to come to Brazil to answer charges under the current indictment -- might possibly be required to come to Brazil for what would be a show trial on the more serious (and patently absurd) charges of "homicide caused by reckless endangerment."

Incidentally, where is the United States State Department on this? (Oh, never mind. I forgot. Don't bother them. There's a war on).

But where, oh where, is the National Transportation Safety Board, which has examined this accident in minute detail and has come to the same conclusion as other independent outside agencies: The disaster was caused by egregious neglegence on the ground, starting 50 minutes before the collision when it became abundantly clear at Brasilia air traffic control that the Legacy transponder was not replying. The N.T.S.B. has a policy of not getting involved in an accident before the country where is occurred completes its investigations, but surely by now is has to be clear that playing patty-cake with the Brazilian authorities is abetting a miscarriage of justice.

In Brazil it almost does not matter which "authorities" we're speaking of, since they're all essentially in wink-and-nod cahoots in a country where, notoriously, nobody in charge takes responsibility, and Outsiders are always at fault, even the facts clearly show otherwise. But at least the Federal Prosecutor, wrong though he might have been, showed some perspective.

The new heat is coming from the Brazilian congress, which has been conducting its own investigation into the crash. The draft house report recommends the new indictment of "homicide by reckless endangerment," which is an extradictable charge.

On the other hand, it doesn't appear as if the congress has the power to enforce any such action. "They have absolutely no authority to indict. The case is already indicted," said Joel Weiss, an attorney representing the two pilots in the United States.

The house draft report is widely seen by cooler heads in Brazil as reflecting a desperation to save face, since it's already been made clear that the two pilots have no intention of returning to Brazil under the current indictment, which permits them instead to give sworn testimony in the United States.

In this case, it seems to me that some elements of the Brazilian media, so reflexively genuflecting to the authorities that I fear they'll soon need collective knee-replacement surgery, are being manipulated by politicians to stir up resentment against the pilots' reasonable position that they won't voluntarily return to a country that detained them without charges for 71 days after the crash.

Here's the ploy, as I see it: How dare they insult the dignity of Brazil by refusing to return? Obviously, ways must be found to save face!

Via translation today from our Sao Paulo bureau chief Richard Pedicini, consider the tone of language in this excerpt from Jornal do Brasil:

" .. the [pilots'] fear of leaving the United States grows every day. The pilots are hedged in on all sides. Not only the Federal Police, but the legislators of the CIP [the congressional investigative panels] see the pair as having the principal blame for the tragedy."

Feigning shock, the report hammers on the fact that the pilots don't intend to come back to Brazil, suggesting that this is an insult that can't be tolerated, treaty or not.

"Paladino and Lepore are benefited by a treaty of mutual cooperation between Brazil an the United States. The agreement opens a loophole for the Americans to be interrogated in New York -- as they desire," it says.

Quoting from the draft report, the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo says that the panel found that the pilots "were conscious of the possibility of the crime happening and, even so, continued their conduct."

Jayzus, if I hadn't been on that airplane myself and spent 36 hours in custody with these guys after we fell out of the sky onto that jungle air strip (literally not knowing what had hit us), I might tend to wonder if the Brazilians know something I don't.

But they don't, trust me.

Never mind that it's now longer in dispute among international aviation investigators that the crash was caused by egregious air-traffic controller errors, coupled with an air-traffic control system that is saddled with antiquated equipment and that functions daily with the reality of radar and radio dead zones -- especially over the Amazon, where the collision took place.

Yes, there is a matter of a perhaps malfunctioning transponder on the Legacy 600 business jet. Was the Legacy transponder malfunctioning? No one has yet been able to say. There is evidence to suggest that the transponder unit in the Legacy might have had some prior technological problems before being installed in the plane that were not disclosed to ExcelAire, the Long Island charter company that had just taken delivery of the $24.7 million plane at Embraer headquarters in Sao Jose dos Campos, near Sao Paulo, on the day of the crash.

It is, of course, also possible that the transponder was accidently knocked into standby, perhaps by being inadvertently jostled by a pilot's foot. (At the bottom of this post, I'm pasting a recent safety alert on Legacy 600 jets by the F.A.A., warning operators of exactly that possibility in the design of that airplane.)

No one but a lunatic would suggest that the pilots deliberately turned off a transponder, however.

Whatever the case, a working transponder and its associated collision-avoidance alarm were at best the last possible chance to avoid impact when air-traffic control had already put two planes (and this is also no longer in dispute by anyone with the sense of a cabbage) on a direct collision course at 37,000 feet, each closing in on one another at about 500 miles an hour.

It is not the pilots' job to monitor a transponder, we also know. It is the duty of air traffic control. And we know (again, not in dispute) that for 50 minutes before the crash, air traffic control in Brasilia, which had charge of the Legacy, was aware that the transponder wasn't functioning and, incredibly, did nothing to alert the pilots to that fact.

From Mr. Pedicini in Sao Paulo, the translation of a recent report from the congressional news servce Real Time:

"Report asks for indictment of controllers and pilots

The report referee of the Aviation Crisis CPI, congressman Marco Maia (PT-RS), informed moments ago that he will ask in his report for the indictment of four air traffic controllers and the two pilots of the Legacy jet, Jean Paul Paladino and Joseph Lepore.

The CPI is investigating the causes of the accident with the Gol Boeing in September of last year, which killed 154 people. The request for indictment of the pilots will be for " homicídio doloso eventual " [roughly, homicide caused by reckless endangerment.]

He reaffirmed that the investigations demonstrated that the larger part of the responsibility for the accident belonged to the American pilots. Maia argues that there is no way to prove that the Legacy's transponder was turned off involuntarily during the flight [My note: There being no way to prove a negative], but affirms that, even under this hypothesis, it is the pilots' responsibility to constantly check the safety equipment, principally in cases of communications failures with air traffic control centers.

The referee further remembered that the pilots opted for a route against traffic. [My note: Blatantly untrue. The pilots were flying at 37,000 feet under direct air-traffic control orders, and this also is no longer in dispute by any honest person following these events].

In the case of the controllers, the report will ask for indictment for unintentional homicide, He still has not divulged the names of the controllers against whom the CPI will ask for indictments."

***

I know this situation isn't the least bit funny, but it might help, for comic relief at least, to have a look at the 1939 Three Stooges short, "Disorder in the Court."

Meanwhile, Brazil Magazine at Brazzil.com, the energetic online daily news magazine, has an even more pointed take on what's going on:

"Brazil Congress Wants US Pilots Indicted for Murder in Air Accident

Written by José Wilson Miranda
Thursday, 12 July 2007

Brazil's Inquiry Parliamentary Commission (CPI) on the Brazilian Air Traffic has concluded its report on Brazil's worst accident ever ...

The Brazilian House of Representatives's commission in the 200-page report is recommending that Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino, the two American pilots, be indicted for murder.

They are considered the main culprits of the accident for having - as the report concluded - turned off the Legacy's transponder ... Lepore and Paladino are accused of acting with malice. Although they had no intention to kill anybody, the document says, they knew their action posed that risk. ...

[My note: Several flight controllers also are being thrown in for good measure, though the congressional panel recommended that the flight controllers be indicted for involuntary manslaughter. These indictments, and any made against the pilots, would presumably supercede already-issued Federal Police indictments of the pilots and the controllers for involuntary negligence (though the federal police did add a graver charge for a single controller, the one monitoring the Legacy as it flew over the Amazon].

Back to the Brazzil.com story:

"[A member of the panel, Marco Maia] believes that by turning off the transponder the American pilots contributed decisively to the accident.

'The truth of the matter is that the transponder was turned off and this is an instrument of major importance for safety. Another consideration is that the aircraft commander is the one responsible for the flight. He needs to be attentive to all the situations,' said the representative.

'All the elements show that the transponder was off and that both pilots were in a wrong way course,' added Maia.

The American pilots responsibility, ponders the legislator, is even bigger when you consider that the pilots didn't know the Brazilian air space, had little knowledge on how to operate the Legacy's equipment and had a "very low situational awareness" in the hours leading to the accident."

[My note, not to argue with the esteemed gentleman, but every international aviation authority has affirmed that air traffic control orders determine flight altitude, and the Legacy was ordered to maintain 37,000 feet. Yes, it's clear the pilots weren't fully aware that Brazilian air space is dangerous and that Brazilian air traffic control, supervised by the military, is run by undertrained and overworked military personnel who have complained (before and after the crash), about poor equipment, bad working conditions and supervisors who are more interested in having the controllers do military marching drills than in operating a safe air traffic system. And no: the pilots, both with distinguished flying records, were fully trained and certified on the Legacy 600.]

Brazzil.com opens its news reports to comments, and here are some that are posted today on that story. Grammar, spelling and punctuation all [sic]:

From someone signed "Gringo Dingo" -- "Can this nation slide anything further down the idiot scale? For Christ sakes Brazil, grow up already will ya! ATCs knew for 50 minutes that the transponder was not functioning but neglected to get into contact with the Legacy; ATCs ASSIGNED the two crafts to collide; it was the ATCs that lied and later feigned illness so as NOT testify during the inquiry and finally if the ATCs were AMERICAN they’d already be hanging from coconut trees in Rio. As it happens, they’re Brazilian, they F**KED UP BIG TIME, however Americans were involved and so politically it’s much easier to scapegoat those dang IMPERIALISTS."

A reply from someone signed C.ostinha: "You said "ATCs knew for 50 minutes that the transponder was not functioning but neglected to get into contact with the Legacy" Distorted Lie.... ATC tried on many occasions to contact the Embraer Jet, to no avail. The american cowboys once again acting like freaking John Wayne..... Bastards! Those american pilots belong in jail for murder.... As to you "GRingo Dingo" a.sshole... The stealthing technology used to hide your brain from all attacks of reason is impressive. Is NASA designing advanced retards now?

From someone signed Madre Dios: "That the pilots turned off the transponder is patently false. The NTSB report, among others, determined that the transponder was malfunctioning and intermittent, turning itself off. The Congress reaches an indictment here, but not in any of the cases of fraud, graft, collusion with any of its own membership. Some thing is rotten in Denmark and it is the smell of Congressional red herrings rotting in the equatorial sun."

Gringo Dingo again (and no, I don't know who Gringo Dingo is and am not pulling his or her strings): "Costa-baby, you knuckle dragging glue sniffing ball juggler; it’s quite possible that NASA has invented some giszmo to do something quite extraordinary this week, unlike your sugar cane pickers that invent nothing but stories of first world imperialism, and your politicians that invent nothing but excuses, but heck, we´ve come to expect little else from you folks. You and your ilk are simply out of your league, and hence need the ole sacrificial “let´s hang-the-bogey-man” public witch hunts to feel better about your pathetic existences. Sure, let’s come right out and say-- contrary to all the facts--that the Americans should be “charged” during this CPI (a BURROcractic invent designed to soley to feign public interest in events while lining the pockets of the already wealthy). Why not? It will be translated on Globo into “Americans are the only guilty” which will be enough to rally the 189,000,000 cachaça suppositories that don’t read into a frenzy. But for the one million who actually do have functioning synapses and can read, they’ll pick up Veja and see they’ve been bamboozled (international ATC is calling Brazil's skies UNSAFE!): AGAIN. Although reading the Brazilian weeklies from Miami doesn’t really count, now does it? Face it Costinha, blaming the pilots for the problems of the ATC is just a political ploy to ease air traffic for Pan, and to take attention off the rest of the countries pathetic woes… which are, in no particular order: Violence, Corruption, Stupidity, Illiteracy, Poverty, Stupidity, Nepotism, Coronelism, Stupidity, Poor infrastructure, stupidity, being Brazilian and Stupidity."

Meanwhile, Folha de S. Paulo weighs in with this summary of the report, with some reaction from the attorney representing ExcelAire and the pilots in Brazil:

"Conclusions

--Motive: The turning off of the transponder was the principal cause of the accident
The pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino practiced the crime of attack against safely, with the destruction of aircraft and the occurrence of deaths, with intent (the risk of their conduct was predictable, but they acted with indifference)

--Controllers: They were negligent in not having performed the procedures foreseen in cases of failure of radio and transponder

CPI's suggestions: Installation of audio alarms in aircraft cockpits and on controllers' consoles, indicating turning off of a transponder. Installation of voice recorders in cockpits with a capacity of more than two hours.

Other Side

CPI's accusation is irresponsible, lawyer says

By the Brasilia Bureau

Lawyer Theo Dias, who represents the Legacy jet's pilots, Americans Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, called "irresponsible" the CPI's accusation of them even before the conclusion of the technical investigations that are being undertaken by aeronautic authorities.

'It was irresponsible to make a supposed investigation conducted by politicians and then announce the judgment even before the conclusions of Cenipa [the FAB center for the investigation and prevention of aeronautic accidents]. It should be something completely new in the history of international aviation,' he reacted.

According to Dias, the CPI was created to analyze the aviation crisis and to propose changes in the system, not to investigate and issue judgments on the causes of aircraft collisions and crashes.

One example of what he called 'irresponsibility' is the fact that the legislators announced 'results' without knowing at least what happened with the transponder ...

He said that, too, he considers it 'an absurdity and a danger' the announcement that the CPI intends to have access to the tapes of the Legacy's black boxes, to analyze the pilots' dialogs.

'How can layman politicians interpret the black boxes of airplanes? This only shows how CPIs have become trivialized in this country,' the lawyer affirmed."

And so it goes ...

***
Here is that F.A.A. safety alert:

SAFO
Safety Alert for Operators
U.S. Department SAFO 07005
of Transportation DATE 7/3/2007
Federal Aviation
Administration Flight Standards Service
Washington, DC
http://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_industry/airline_operators/airline_safety/safo

A SAFO contains important safety information and may include recommended action. SAFO content should be especially valuable to air carriers in meeting their statutory duty to provide service with the highest possible degree of safety in the public interest.

Subject: Embraer Legacy/EMB-135, -140, -145 — Be Careful Where You Put Your Foot

Purpose: This SAFO calls attention to the possibility that a pilot of an Embraer Legacy, EMB-135 or -145 (sometimes called EMB-140 in marketing literature) might inadvertently change VHF radio frequencies or place the ATC transponder into standby mode during flight.

Background: During an investigation the FAA discovered that crewmembers who had the simple habit of placing their shoe on the footrest just below the instrument panel could inadvertently put the ATC transponder into standby mode, or change radio frequencies without the crew's awareness. Further, they found that pilots might not notice the corresponding indication on the Pilot Flight Display due to the white colored letters, which are not as noticeable as differently colored caution or warning indications.

Switching a transponder with a functioning traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) to standby mode renders the TCAS ineffective, and is therefore one of the most serious consequences of a pilot’s foot inadvertently contacting the radio management unit. Two airplanes equipped with TCAS would fail to see each other if they were on a collision course. Pilots could presume TCAS was operating normally if they failed to notice the subtle TCAS OFF indication on the Pilot Flight Display.

Recommended Action: Managers of part 142 training centers where pilot training on the Embraer Legacy, EMB-135, and EMB-145 is conducted should ensure that their trainers caution pilots of this latent hazard and emphasize the importance of being careful when using the footrests provided.

Similarly, directors of safety, directors of operations, trainers, and check airmen for operators flying any of these Embraer models should immediately make this hazard known to their pilots and should make sure that it is addressed in their training programs, especially during flight training, supervised operating experience, and line checks.
Any questions regarding the content of this SAFO should be directed to the Air Transportation Division, AFS-200, at (202) 267-8116.
Approved by: AFS-200

--ends

Boys of Brazil: Stop Fighting This Instant!

2007-07-08T10:58:00.000-04:00

Wonderful Waldir Pires

(Carmen) Miranda Warning:

Boys of Brazil: Stop That Name-Calling This Instant!

Oh, they're turning on each other as the Investigations roll on in Brazil, where those behind the concerted efforts to scapegoat two innocent American pilots for the Sept. 29 air disaster are starting to look like thrashing pirannah. Too bad, because some of the testimony in the Senate inquiry has become riveting. Such as, a segreant in air traffic control saying that the secondary radar was known to be malfunctioning that day in the area of the crash, and controllers had been warned that aircraft transponders might be unreliable. More on that in a later post.

But really, this name-calling must stop! Yes, I know that way back in early October I began referring to Brazilian Defense Minister Waldir Pires as "Wonderful Waldir." Two weeks later, Wonderful Waldir denounced me as an "ignorant" and an "impudent youngster," the latter mild insult being especially delicious as I read it on the morning of my 60th birthday.

I am told the nickname "Wonderful" got under the skin of the octogenerian Defense Minister, and I myself kind of liked the way it was translated, non-alliteratively, in a few Portuguese-language newspapers: "Marveloso."

Wonderful Waldir, you will recall, is in charge of Brazilian air traffic control. His earliest and abiding impulse was to foolishly criminalize the accident, cover-up the manifest catastrophic chain of errors in air-traffic control that put two planes on a colllision course at 37,000 feet over the Amazon, and put all blame on the American pilots -- well before any investigation had time to get its boots on.

Wonderful Waldir, you might recall, ludicrously insisted the pilots were doing illegal "aerial maneuvers," like loop-d-loops, in the Amazon skies when the crash occurred, and never really backed down even after it was shown that Brazilian ATC radar has a habit of going heywire in the dead zones of Amazon air space that Pires and his cronies insisted did not exist.

The other day, a Brazilian senator who heads one of the congressional committees investigating the nine-months of air-traffic control chaos that have rattled air traffic in Brazil since the accident denounced Wonderful Waldir and called him a very bad word in Brazil:

"Banana."

One reason this is a graver insult in Portuguese than in English, evidently, is that the word, besides suggesting that the insultee is missing a few marbles, also could suggest the Banana republic era of South America and the odious military dictatorships that ruled in association with United States based banana-importing companies.

Obviously my blog postings on the Brazil crash and the aftermath over the last nine months have a strong point of view. Hey, I was there, and my six comrades on that lucky plane will tell you that I had this figured for a set-up within hours after we fell out of the sky onto that jungle air strip, literally unaware of what had hit us.

But I've tried to be very careful with the facts, even when I was the only one reporting them. (I'm still unable to figure out a way to import the Brazil posts before I broke out the Brazil news into this separate blog. To see the archives, please see http://www.joesharkey.com/)

So let's set the record straight on one thing.

Wonderful Waldir was no friend of the right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 till 1985. When the military coup against populist (but not popular) President Joao Goulart occurred in 1964 (with support from the United States, as many Brazilians will never forget), young Pires was a Goulart cabinet minister. In the dotage of an old leftie in South America, a reflexive anti-Americanism must be viewed in a certain context).

As the respected Brazilian journalist Alberto Dines wrote back in December, Pires is "an honest, courageous poilitician with an undefiled biography."

However, as the head of Brazilian commercial and military aviation ... well, not so hot. On his watch, huge sums of money went to supposedly improve what had been a third-world air traffic control system, while Brazilian commercial air traffic soared. Whatever they spent the money on, it didn't buy them a first-class system. The crash merely exposed the huge technological and human problems with Brazil's military-run air-traffic system that international pilots have talked about for years.

After the crash last Sept. 29, Pires flew off the tracks and greatly contributed to the current mess. As Dines wrote: His "intention was to make the government look good, or at least the ruling party." Pires, Dines said, "politicized the tragedy from the very beginning ... The pilots of the Legacy were Americans, ergo they were preliminarily guilty."

Pires has a lot to answer for, and so do some of the government's flunkies in the news media, who have been flogging the anti-American donkey since day one, irrespective of the facts in this particular case.

More detail later on what's been happening in the congressional investigations, some testimony in which has not pleased the "hang the Americans" mob.

Of course, some Brazilian newspapers and their amusingly delusional columnists (who genuflect to the authorities for their "scoops" so reflexively that I worry they'll soon require knee-replacement surgery), are of course still doing their desperate level-best to denounce inconvenient facts and villify apostates whose testimony gets in way of the story as they have been instructed to report it. That false story is taking on water like the Titanic.

---ends

The Swiss Connection II: International Controllers May Sanction Brazil

2007-07-01T13:06:00.000-04:00

This is going to be an interesting week for air travel in Brazil.

Air traffic controllers in Brazil are outraged that Brazilian military authorities have charged four controllers (along with the two American pilots) in the mid-air collision, and then arrested others as controllers continued protesting poor working conditions and safety hazards in Brazil's air traffic control system. The military, which runs air traffic control, has accused controllers of sabotaging the system.

International air-traffic control representatives are said to be deeply concerned about deteriorating conditions in Brazil.

As our Sao Paulo bureau chief Richard Pedicini reports, "on Saturday, 45 percent of flights in Brazil were delayed and 12.6 percent canceled. For Sunday so far, it's running 33% delayed."

As to the international air traffic controllers position, the following excerpts are from Correio Brasiliense as translated by Mr. Pedicini:

Warning now comes from overseas

In an official communication, the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers says that the Air Force system of flight operation is unsafe. The measure may impede foreign planes from landing in the country

Mariana Mainenti and Renata Mariz
Correio reporters

Brazilian air space will be declared insecure by the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers [Associations], IFACTA. Christoph Gilgen, who is an air traffic controller and represents IFATCA in Switzerland, affirmed that a few details remain before the publication of an official note. "I expected that this declaration would be made today (yesterday), but there are some small changes", he said. The tendency is for international airlines to stop flying to Brazil and for the aviation crisis, under control after the emergency plan was adopted by the government eight days ago, to get worse. The Air Force affirmed that it will not comment on the IFATCA declaration before it is released.

Christoph Gilgen is harsh in his criticism of the Brazilian air traffic control system. He spent a week in Brazil, after the Gol accident, last September, to verify the operation of the Integrated Center for Air Traffic Control and Defense (Cindacta) in Brasilia ... [My note: That's the air-traffic control center that had control of both planes at the time of the collision.]

In an extensive report, he criticized the equipment and the military administration ... [The report is expected to say that software] used by the Air Force to monitor flights is outdated and unsafe. He criticized the system's imprecision on aircraft altitude, duplication of images on monitors and radar blind zones. This week, ... [the Air Force conceded] problems in its equipment. But, in a note, it again denied that there was any danger to passengers.

The consequences of a declaration such as IFATCA will make are unpredictable. But Christoph Gilgen believes that the impacts ... may be harsh. This is because airlines may tend to see the country with a certain doubt and, even more seriously, stop doing business in it. While it does not have a regulatory character, Cristoph explains, Ifatca is an entity respected worldwide, with close to 50,000 members in 130 countries. The same declaration has already been made in relation to Iran, Greece, and Tailand.

The newspaper goes on to state that Air Force officials believe the pending IFATCA statement declaring Brazil air space unsafe merely reflects "controllers looking after their own" and would be a ploy to protect Brazilian air traffic controllers "from responsibility for the accident with the Gol plane and, at the same time, give a second wind to the demands for demilitarization" of Brazil's air-traffic control work force.

--ends

Brazil Updates: The Swiss Connection

2007-06-29T15:29:00.000-04:00

Without comment, here are some updates from the news in Brazil, translations by our Sao Paulo bureau chief Richard Pedicini. The Swiss Connection can be found in the final item.

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Brasil/0,,MUL60155-5598,00.html

Report points to problems in aviation sector

Air Force Department of Air Space Control makes diagnosis of country's situation.
2005 document reveals need to hire 1,400.

By G1, with information from Jornal Nacional [TV Globo evening news]

A report by the Air Force Department of Flight Control, received by the Senate aviation sector CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) affirms that there is a shortage of controllers in the county and the system has reached its limits. ...

The report is from the end of 2005. A development plan for 2005 to 2009 and the Air Force winds up recognizing some of the criticism made by controllers [and cites] "rapid obsolescence and the limitations of equipment and systems."

In another section it says that "due to the increase in the demand for air travel, to the reduction of the separation between aircraft, (my italics) undesirable conflicts between air traffic sometimes occur." ... The document explains that "air traffic service organs are approaching the limit of their operational capacity, in terms of personnel and equipment." ...

***

GAZETA MERCANTIL

Country has fragile control, official report attests
by Fernando Exman

Brasilia, June 28, 2007 - Poor quality aviation maps, gaps in communication and lack of personnel are bottlenecks in aviation. A secret Air Force document discussed yesterday in a closed session of the Senate Aviation Blackout CPI proved the fragility of the system for controlling air traffic and the country's borders. Produced in November of 2005, the system reveals that the systems of communications, navigation and surveillance have shortcomings. The Department of Air Space Control (Decea), the study demonstrates, has a deficit of personnel and equipment. Besides this, the maps used in Brazilian aviation have poor quality and the increase in demand has harmed the use of some airports and part of air space.

The document differs from the declarations of Brazilian Air Force (FAB) officials and repeated by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has turned back the accusations of professionals in the area that the Brazilian air traffic control system has imperfections. The document in question is the Air Space Control System Development Plan, a document in effect from November of 2005 to November of this year and to which this reporter had access.

"I been saying that there are weaknesses in the system for a long time. The lack of equipment and personnel is a reality. It's easy to put the blame on human failure", said the president of the National Syndicate of Flight Protection Workers, Jorge Botelho, referring to the investigations of the accident which involved the Gol Boeing and the Legacy. ...

xxx

O Dia

Gol Tragedy
Analyst alerted to control failure
In the House, Vinicius Gomes said that FAB knew of problem before accident

Brasilia – Air Traffic Control Institute systems analyst Vinicius Lanzoni Gomes, in testimony to the House Aviation Blackout CPI, said he informed the Air Force authorities of errors in the air traffic control system three months before the accident between the Gol Boeing and the Legacy jet, which left 154 dead.

According to Gomes, because of this, he was threatened with firing at the end of the year. "I cannot remain silent. I concluded that it's better for me to pay than the Brazilian population pay", he said.

The analyst said that the controllers are correct when they affirm that the system induces errors and harms flight safety. "They can't speak because they're in uniform but I am a civilian, I'm disposable and have nothing to lose," he affirmed. ...

***
And here is the Swiss Connection.

http://conversa-afiada.ig.com.br/materias/440501-441000/440669/440669_1.html

27/06/2007 13:09h

Paulo Henrique Amorim

CPI congressman denounces "plot" by controllers

Congressman André Vargas (PT-Parana), member of the Aviation Blackout CPI, accused that the military air traffic controllers are in "collusion" with the representative of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers, the Swiss Christoph Gilgen.

Last Sunday, Gilgen gave an interview to the Folha de S. Paulo and said that "arrest and silence are things of dictatorships". During the interview, Gilgen said that "Brazilian air space has problems and there may even be another accident."

... Congressman André Vargas said in an interview with Conversa Afiada this Wednesday, the 27th, that he received accusations that Gilgen and the Brazilian military controllers, including those jailed, schemed to pressure the Government.

Vargas said that he received in his office, anonymously, copies of emails exchanged between jailed Brazilian controllers Moisés Almeida, Wellington Rodrigues, Carlos Trifilio and Gilgen.

In these emails, according to Vargas, they agreed on strategies to to put pressure on the air traffic system and strategies in relation to the media.

"That is so say, a Swiss comes, attacks our system, attacks Brazil, the national sovereignty, Brazil's image and says, "the pressure has to be kept up, the heading must be held, don't let any more fish out of the net'... Now, having access to these emails we perceive that it is a real plot to attack Brazil to solve one profession's problems", said Vargas.

Congressman André Vargas said that this movement can be classified as a mutiny on the part of the controllers. ...

-end

All Fixed!

2007-06-25T13:15:00.001-04:00

"Now that we've arrested a few controllers, the air-travel mess in Brazil is totally fixed. Yeah ... that's the ticket."

-- Tommy Flanagan ("Flan-AY-gen"), the man who cannot tell the truth, as portrayed by Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live.

Well, those of you stuck in the chaos of Brazil's airports can rest easy. It's all fixed, Lucky Lula announces. As reported today by Reuters:

BRASILIA, June 25 (Reuters) - Six days of chaos at Brazil's airports have come to an end, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Monday, after the government sacked 14 air traffic controllers and ordered two of their leaders arrested.

"There are no more delays due to air control problems," Lula said on his weekly radio program.

A work slowdown by controllers, most of them air force officers, had caused renewed chaos in airports last week. Hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled, affecting business travel between the main hubs like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Latin America's largest country.

"In view of this fact of insubordination, I determine that the air force command put the house in order, do whatever needs to be done. But we have to keep the airports functioning well, maintain military discipline," Lula said.

Air travel chaos has persisted on and off for months, with some 100 controllers walking off the job on March 30, which forced a brief shutdown of all airports and triggered further air traffic problems in April as strike talks went on.

Controllers are demanding higher pay, modern equipment and a lighter work load.

The air force sacked 14 controllers on Friday and ordered the arrest of two union leaders. "An army" of new controllers would be trained to avoid problems in the future, Lula added.

He also said Brazil's air traffic control equipment was among the world's most modern, rejecting air controller claims it was outdated and risky. Lula said calling it outdated was tantamount to "terrorizing society".

Two passenger planes clipped wings late on Sunday while taxiing at Sao Paulo's domestic airport, adding concerns about the air travel safety. Nobody was injured and the incident was apparently unrelated to the labor protest.

Air travel has repeatedly been disrupted since Brazil's worst aviation accident last September unveiled a series of problems, including insufficient infrastructure and overburdened, underpaid staff. A Gol airlines Boeing 737 and a small executive jet collided on Sept. 29 in mid-air, killing 154 people.

My note: Wonderful Waldir Pires, the doddering defense minister who has loudly denounced all (like me) who have pointed out that Brazil's military-run air-traffic system is widely considered by international pilots to be unsafe and unreliable, remains in his job, part of which is to run air traffic control. He has a private plane, though.

--end

O.K., Back in the Game; Another New Air Travel Crisis

2007-06-23T15:59:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know I've announced my retirement more often than Barbra Streisand, and I thought the last one was real.

Surely, I thought, official Brazil cannot become any nuttier than it had become nine months after the Sept. 29 mid-air collision. Surely, I thought, the mainstream U.S. media would try to catch up with this disgrace of a story in Brazil by now.

Wrong on both counts. It did. They didn't.

Brazil's air travel system is in chaos again, another consequence of the hopelessly botched investigations into the Sept. 29 crash by the Brazilian military, the Brazilian Congress and the Brazilian Keystone Kops ... I mean, Federal Police. For my critics among the kept and compliant news-media and official bureaucracies in Brazil who wail that I am a repellent xenophobe every time I do this, I offer once more the very popular photo of the actual Keystone Kops on the job investigating a case.

(All of the previous nine months of Brazil posts on Joe Sharkey At Large will be transfered to this new blog once I figure out how to do it).

Anyway, I'm back in the game. In for a penny, in for a dollar.

Here's what it looked like yesterday from Rio according to the Associated Press

Rio de Janeiro -- Authorities beefed up security at airports across Brazil on Thursday to
protect airline workers from fist-waving passengers angered by flight delays and cancellations.
Passengers shouted and tried to storm ticket counters at the Brazilian airports to demand transfers to other flights ... The air force, which oversees Brazil's air traffic control system, issued a statement blaming the delays on problems with radar screens and a communication link failure.

The crisis forced Defense Minister Waldir Pires to return early from the Paris air show, his
office said. Faced with rising tempers among passengers, authorities sent extra officers to airports in Rio, Brasilia and Porto Velho. ...

"The atmosphere is very worrisome. We are taking all the necessary measures but we are near the limit," Infraero President Brig Jose Carlos Pereira told reporters. [Infraero is the Brazilian airport authority.]

On Wednesday, the Air Force also ordered the president of the air traffic controllers' federation, Carlos Trifilio, to be imprisoned for giving unauthorized interviews to media.

Controllers allege that poor working conditions and inadequate training are putting the public
at risk."

{MY NOTE: "Allege?" ... "At risk?" Isn't this all in response to shifting blame and scapegoating and manifestly failing to fix the broken system following the Sept. 29 disaster that killed 154?}

Meanwhile, our Sao Paulo bureau chief, Richard Pedicini, has never stopped reporting. Here are some recent news stories he had translated from the Portuguese. Yep, the air traffic controllers are in full tantrum mode again.

http://diariodonordeste.globo.com/materia.asp?codigo=445278

Editorial (22/6/2007)

Aerial Chaos

The resurgence of the air transport crisis, this week, after being set off nine months ago, is beyond all levels of tolerance. It prefigures, as such, an environment of disgoverning, of disrespect to passengers, of vacillating command at the levels involved in teh problem and of insensibility to an extremely profitable economic segment.

Lamentable too are the missteps in solving the problem. While the President of the Republic demonstrated, once more, wanting to know the day, hour and month at which there will be a solution for the aviation crisis, the minister of Defense, Waldir Pires, had publicly foreseen the need for a year to find this solution. {MY NOTE: Welcome back to our non-oscillating radar screen, Wonderful Waldir Pires!}

The causes of the accident between the North American Legacy and the Gol Boeing - origin of the crisis - are timidly pointed out. However, the revelation of the supposed nonexistence of communications between air traffic control and aircraft flying in the transition zones in the Amazon, between Sindacta I (sic), in Brasília, and Sindacta IV, in Manaus, remain without a convincing response. {MY NOTE: This would be a reference to the radio and radar blind spots over the Amazon that the Brazilian authorities vilified me as a liar and worse for first mentioning nine months ago.}

In the confusion, the accusations of air traffic controllers of equipment failures and the disorganization of flight plans present a prato cheio [a full helping, a bonanza, a cornucopia] for the defense of the pilots indicted as culprits for the aircraft accident, along with the six on duty in the towers.

The deficiencies of air transport are, in fact, of disturbing proportions.

The solutions previously seen for the crisis, such as the reduction of part of the traffic concentrated in Brasilia, have not left the drawing board. Airports like Tom Jobim, in Rio de Janeiro, Tancredo Neves, in Belo Horizonte, and Guararapes, in Recife, continue to be underutilized. But Brasilia and São Paulo, from where negative impacts on flight plans spread, continue exhibiting their technical deficiencies, with the tacit acceptance of the civil aviation administrators. ..."

***

Well said!

They're not all crazy down there. But let's turn to the front-page headline from Folha, a newspaper that I fear is one day going to expire simply from the exhaustion of constant genuflecting to its masters:

"Air Force see sabotage and Palace authorizes arrests
Crisis worsens and affects almost half of flights; controllers foresee radicalization

"Faced with the worsening of the aviation crisis, president Lula authorized the Air Force to take a harder line with the air traffic controllers. ... Besides speeding up military inquiries underway, the decision is to arrest the leaders, described by the Air Force as "saboteurs'"

***
More headlines:

Lula authorizes Air Force to arrest "saboteurs"

Arrests will be based on military regulations, since military inquiries are slow

Yesterday, airports faced a third consecutive day of flight delays [after] arrest raised tempers among controllers.

***

Some news nuggets:

--Investigating Congressmen arrived at Cindacta-1, the air traffic control center where the most egregious errors were made on Sept 29, and found that "officers and controllers didn't even say hello" to the visiting dignitaries.

-- A congressional Referee leading one of the investigations "joked about the need to turn on transponders of officers and controllers, to avoid collisions."

***

Yup, we are back down the rabbit hole in Brazil.

--end

Joe Sharkey: Brazil

Aviation Know-It-All Crashes Plane Into a Pole

Case Closed. Now Call the Witnesses!

The Legacy Transponder: Case Closed?

A Half-Flanagan

Another Fatal Air Crash in Brazil

Brazil's Skies: 'If You Had Courage and An Airplane, You Had an Airline'

The Morning News: A Flawed Aviation System? Oh-My-God!

The Morning News: Fingerpointing Fandango (Cont'd).

Aviator Day in Brazil

Hey, Here's an Idea: Stop Blaming People and Fix Your Busted Aviation System Before Somebody Else Gets Hurt

Unsafe Skies? Why, I Oughta....

How DARE They Say These Skies Are Unsafe!

How DARE They Say These Skies Are Unsafe!

Day One of Year Two, and Dines From His 3-Inch Perch

Sept. 29, 2006 - Sept. 29, 2007

The Empty Skies

For the Record

The CPI Report on the Sept. 29 Crash

The Truth Finally Gets Its Socks On

Brazil's Skies: 'Unreliable, Unsafe and Inefficient'

Video of Jungle Search

Trial Update

Trumped-Up Charges

Once More Down the Rabbit Hole

Brazil Demands Pilots Return

From the BBC Brazil:

Brazil's Aviation Crisis, 11 Months Later

'Everything Was Not Fine..."

Brazil's Air Traffic Control: 'Outdated' and Dysfunctional

Aviation Group: Don't Create Another 'Absurdity'

Verdict Is In; Investigation Continues. Notes From Last Week

Better He Should Deliver Himself to a Safe Aviation System

Waldir We Hardly Knew Ye

Brazil to International Controllers: Drop Dead!

Do They Ever Take Responsibility for Anything?

No Serenity in Brazil's Skies

That's the Ticket: Serenity Now, Dammit!

Rush to Judgment

An Editorial

Lessons Not Learned

Plane Crash at Sao Paulo Airport

Kongressional Kapers

Let's Play Whac-a-Mole

Brazil's Unsafe Air Traffic Technology, False Alarms and Aerial Maneuvers

Whac-a-Mole Redux

Boys of Brazil: Stop Fighting This Instant!

The Swiss Connection II: International Controllers May Sanction Brazil

Brazil Updates: The Swiss Connection

Air Force Department of Air Space Control makes diagnosis of country's situation.2005 document reveals need to hire 1,400.

All Fixed!

O.K., Back in the Game; Another New Air Travel Crisis

Editorial (22/6/2007)

Aerial Chaos

Air Force Department of Air Space Control makes diagnosis of country's situation.
2005 document reveals need to hire 1,400.