Originally Posted by
Chris200
This means that the vertical separation with all other aircraft has to be 2000ft (!) and not 1000 like if it was RVSM approved.
the GOL should have been cleared to FL390 or FL330 (FL350 in case the controller supposed the Legacy at FL370, which was not the case)!
In your first post/question I asumed you knew about ATC and RVSM procedures, I was obvously wrong.
RVSM is about Height keeping accuracy . You do not need radar for RVSM. The mandatory transponder operation is to verify heigh reported/ by height measured and broadcast, and to provide ACAS protection.
If the controller would have noticed the loss of SSR of the Legacy and could not reach it on VHF ( which was apparently the case) then it is not 2000 ft but lateral separation that was needed with the Gol.
This is not an RVSM accident. Same would have happened if the Legacy had been coordinated at 350 instead of 36. The problem was that he was still at 37 UNDETECTED and the ATC Technical system in Brasilia showed the aircraft at the coordinated level , not his actual level.
Overhead the ocean the airspace is not RVSM because there is no Radar coverage and bad radio transmission. And in the same way that every aircraft need special equipment to enter RVSM airpace, every center also needs special equipment to operate as RVSM airspace.
Totally wrong : the first RVSM airspace was the North Atlantic, and many States Operating RVSM todat do not have 100% radar coverage.
You do not need any " special equipment" in ATC centres to operate RVSM, it is is just an extension of what you have been doing for years below FL285.
Proper training and procedures are definitively another matter.