U.S. Pilots Indicted In Brazil Plane Crash

Source: CBS News

A federal judge indicted two U.S. pilots and four Brazilian air traffic controllers Friday on charges equivalent to involuntary manslaughter in connection with Brazil's worst air disaster, court officials said.

Judge Murilo Mendes accepted the charges filed by a prosecutor last week in a federal court in Sinop, a small city near the Amazon jungle site where a Boeing jetliner last year plunged into the rain forest after a collision with an executive jet. All 154 people aboard the jetliner died, while the executive jet landed safely.

"The judge accepted the charges and now the criminal process begins," court spokesman Fabio Paz said by telephone. He said the American pilots have been called on to give preliminary depositions on Aug. 27 and the flight controllers have been called to testify a day later.

Prosecutors last week asked the judge to indict pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino, both of New York state, with exposing an aircraft to danger resulting in death. The charge is similar to involuntary manslaughter and punishable by one to three years in prison, Paz said.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/01/world/main2876690.shtml

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From what I've read of this crash IMHO these two pilots are being railroaded!

Both were new airplanes; both should have had top-of-the-line traffic avoidance equipment. Very strange.

:shrug:

not spotting the malfunctioning equipment.

Although, to be honest, I haven't read if the equipment showed any signs of not working correctly. If it didn't indicate it was broken, then the yanks are being charged for not being omniscient.

The judge will decide to continue with the case or to dismiss.

The judge should dismiss until the incident investigation has been concluded.

Source: Associated Press

4 Indicted Men Testify About Plane Crash

Monday June 4, 2007 7:16 PM

By MICHAEL ASTOR

Associated Press Writer

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Four flight controllers indicted
in connection with Brazil's deadliest air disaster testified Monday
before a congressional commission, a day after two of them
blamed the crash on equipment error.

The men spoke behind closed doors to a panel investigating the
country's troubled air traffic control system as dozens of their
colleagues demonstrated outside in support of their allegation
that obsolete instruments caused last year's jetliner crash that
killed all 154 aboard.

A federal judge on Friday indicted the four men, as well as the
two New York pilots who were flying an Embraer Legacy 600
executive jet when it collided with a Boeing 737 operated by
Gol airlines over the Amazon rainforest on Sept. 29.

-snip-

Santos told Globo TV's Fantastico program on Sunday night
that the accident was a result of “faulty information” on
equipment showing the Legacy's altitude level.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6682936,00.html