I hope these two pilots get a fair shake. From the excerpts of this article, it looks like they're already looking for a scapegoat....Tag, you're it ! :-(
What a bunch of crap.
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Brazilian authorities believe two pilots may have shut off the transponder in their business jet, rendering its anti-collision system useless,
"We know that the transponder was turned off," said Jose Carlos Pereira, the head of Brazil's airports authority, the Estado De Sao Paulo newspaper reported on Wednesday...."A pilot only turns it off when he doesn't want to be identified. The Legacy could have turned it off to try some air tricks far from the eyes of the air traffic controllers," Pereira said.
Pereira of Brazil's airport authority, who was also a military pilot, told Estado that Gol's Boeing 737-800 was probably being flown on automatic pilot and closely adhering to its set altitude.
"The Boeing is like a bus. It never leaves its route," Pereira said. "With the automatic pilot its altitude varies at most by one meter."