Update from O Globo
http://oglobo.globo.com/pais/mat/200.../286082347.asp
The first link in the article opens a photo gallery of the crash area. Which should give people a better idea of the difficulties involved in tracking the wreckage pattern. All but four or five bodies have been recovered and most identified. The missing CVR part hasn't. Portable hydraulic and inflatable jacks lent by Varig are being used to lift/shift large wreckage in search of both.
A comment, presumably recorded by Globo in an unguarded moment; the commentator was Secretary General of ICAO from 1997 to 2003, Brigadier Renato Claudio Costa Pereira. (free translation from another article (
http://oglobo.globo.com/pais/mat/200...86076178.asp):
"What's the use of seven attempts to contact the Legacy? If you can't get through to the aircraft, contact others in the area and get everyone out of their way. That's the way it was done before, without radar..."
I think you can assume he means before the Brazilian Amazon had radar coverage via Sivam.
As comments like these and others filter in and hard knowlege from the more informed local sources spreads, one can feel the initial anger at the Legacy crew diminishing in the press and in aviation websites. The government, via the Minister of Defense, have said "we have no reason to hold the crew during the course of the investigation but neither can we countermand a court order". The court order to ensure the crew stay in Brazil having been issued by a judge in the state of Mato Grosso. You might compare that to a judge in Iowa impounding a foreign crews' passports during the first stages of a similar investigation into a midair over the cornfields.
My reading re the Legacy crew situation is that they should be home within the week or fortnight, on call for further depositions but unlikely to have to return to Brazil for same.