October 4, 2006
Brazilian authorities confiscated the passports of two American pilots on Tuesday who were flying a business jet that apparently collided with a Gol commercial airliner that crashed last week deep in the Amazon jungle, killing all 155 people on board.
Judge Tiago de Abril in Mato Grosso state, where the plane went down, said police had seized the passports of Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino on his orders for the duration of the investigation.
"That's a cautionary measure. If they returned to the United States it would require a lot of time and effort for us to collect their testimony," the judge said, adding that the investigation should not take long.
The two pilots, who were flying a newly built executive jet that authorities believe clipped the Boeing 737-800 in midair, arrived on Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro for medical and psychological tests as part of the investigation.
They face more questioning on Wednesday.
"They are being interviewed by the authorities and are giving their total cooperation with the investigation," said Glauco Paiva, a US consulate official in Rio.
The business jet, a Legacy 600 made by Brazilian manufacturer Embraer, was recently purchased by ExcelAire Service, a charter company based in Ronkonkoma, New York. The pilots were flying it to the United States when it apparently hit the airliner flown by low-cost Brazilian carrier Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes.
The business jet was able to land safely at a military base in the jungle. None of the seven people on board were hurt.
Air Force commander Luiz Carlos Bueno said on Monday both planes were flying at 37,000 feet, which means that one of them had strayed from its flight plan.
Investigators want to know why modern collision avoidance equipment installed on both planes did not prevent the accident, local aviation authorities said.
Brazilian news reports have offered a range of conflicting theories about the accident's cause, some speculating that the Legacy jet may have deviated from its flight plan.
Christine Negroni, with US law firm Kreindler & Kreindler which is not involved in the investigation, said all planes heading west in Brazil fly at even multiples of 1,000 feet, and those heading east at odd multiples.
"Since the American pilots were flying northwest, they should not have been at 37,000 (feet). That's very odd," she said.
At the crash site in a dense, remote area in the rain forest, salvage crews had recovered the remains of about 50 victims by Tuesday, including the airliner's two pilots.
"Parts of the plane and many bodies are scattered over an area of some 20 square kilometres in the forest and searchers have to scare away wild animals, especially at night, by burning large fires," an air force spokesman said.
A badly damaged black box from the Boeing will probably be taken for analysis to the United States or Canada, after which it will be compared with the data from the business jet, aviation authorities said.
As it often does, the US National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to help with the probe in Brazil.
Grieving relatives were asked to provide dental records or descriptions that could help identify the bodies, as well as blood samples for DNA tests.
(Reuters)
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