The cover story in the January 25 issue of
Época magazine, the number two Brazilian newsweekly, is titled
"WORRY" and claims that nothing has been done to fix the ATC system, citing several incidents.
This cannot be taken at face value. For example in one incident of close approach or near collision (June 12, 2007, 15:30, São Paulo Guarulhos airport, Alitalia Boeing 777 AZA677 and
Beechcraft King Air F90 PT LYZ. )
Época has a drawing of the planes separated by only 30 meters of vertical distance, and that's what is says in the text. However, the planes were also 1.2 nautical miles apart. The Air Force said it clarified that.
Época says well, the air force confirmed the 30 meters, and it just disregarded the 1.2 nautical miles as being another subject. Right.
Two other incidents related are in the same region as the Legacy/Gol 1907 collision. One, on June 3, 2007, at 02:30 (UTC) as Air Canada flight 091 from Guarulhos in São Paulo to Toronto neared Manaus airspace at 32,000 feet, it couldn't make contact with ATC, and began to circle until it could establish communications. However, radar was out and it couldn't be seen by ATC. Momentarily it appeared on the screen, and ATC diverted American Airlines Flight 950 from Guarulhos to JFK and Delta Flight 120 also from Guarulhos to JFK, which were coming close behind at the same altitude.
There's also a reference to radar screens giving incorrect data on flights, again in the Sinop/Cachimbo region where the Gol Boeing went down. That can best been seen in the diagram accompanying the text, available (in Portuguese) here:
http://epoca.globo.com/infograficos/506_aviacao.html
Below, a partial translation of the
Época article.
- Richard
Unpublished Air Force documents reveal that the risk of aviation disaster has not diminished
25/01/2008 - 23:18 | Issue no. 506
Cover Story:
WORRY
Unpublished Air Force documents reveal situations with high accident risks in Brazilian air space. Weren't two tragedies enough?
Wálter Nunes with Matheus Leitão
On June 12 of last year, the Presidency of the Republic's Airbus 319, known as Aerolula, took off from Guarulhos International Airport at about 15:30. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had participated in the 7th CUT National Congress of Metal Workers and was returning to Brasilia. Every time the Presidency of the Republic's airplane turns on its motors, air traffic control increases its alertness. The distances between airplanes are increased and the controller begins to treat as a priority the airplane which appears on the control screen with the tag FAB01, the principal plane of the Brazilian Air Force fleet.
On that day it was no different. Aerolula was the center of attention. Until a breakdown in the Guarulhos control room blacked out three of the four consoles, the devices that allow the visualization of aircraft. With only one of them working, the controller responsible for the security of the Presidential aircraft began to monitor another 13 airplanes. At that instant, an Alitalia Boeing 777, call sign AZA677, which was taking from Guarulhos on its way to Italy, was rapidly approaching a private bimotor, call sign PT LYZ. [
It seems to be a Beechcraft King Air F90, belonging to Ícaro Taxi Aéreo.
] There was a high risk of collision. The air traffic controllers, perceiving the possibility of an accident, altered the trajectory of the Italian plane. But, as the two aircrafts' routes foresaw a curve soon ahead, the alteration determined wound up throwing one plane into the other. Only 30 meters separated the belly of the Alitalia plane from the roof of the bimotor. It seems like a long distance. For airplanes at an average velocity of 550 mph, it's not. The minimum safety margin, determined by international standards, is 300 meters.
The FAB (Brazilian Air Force) internal report classified the incident as serious, with a critical collision risk. The the Air Force internal investigation's conclusion is a synthesis of the problems of Brazilian air traffic control: equipment fails, the controllers work in improper conditions and are overloaded. The controller, with 14 airplanes on the same screen, one of them being Aerolula, erred. And almost caused a tragedy.
It was not the only case of a near accident in recent months. Internal Air Force documents, to which
ÉPOCA had access, show hundreds of records of air traffic control failures. They go from breakdowns in equipment and maintenance failures to the existence of locations in Brazilian air space that the radars don't manage to monitor. They are failures similar to those that contributed to the accident with the Gol Boeing in September of 2006. After the collision with the Legacy jet, the Gol airplane crashed, killing 154 people. During the investigations of this tragedy, the country was alerted to the problems of air traffic control personnel and equipment. And began to have doubts about the true safety conditions of Brazilian aviation.
A second large-scale accident reinforced the trauma. On trying to land on a rainy day, in July, a TAM airplane overshot the runway, collided with one of the airline's warehouses and exploded, killing 199 people. Seventeen months after the aviation crisis began, doubts remain. Is traveling by air in Brazil safe? For Air Major-Brigadier Ramon Borges Cardoso, director-general of the Department of Air Space Control (Decea), "In terms of safety, we continue very well." According to him, the country was always safe. It has one of the best controls of air traffic in the world. The opinion is the opposite of that of the Swiss president of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers (Ifacta), Marc Baumgartner. "A new aviation accident in Brazil is a question of time", he says.
Some of the documents that the Air Force keeps secret seem to support Baumgartner. There, there are reported cases in which disasters were narrowly averted (see table). There are critical incidents - when one aircraft comes closer than it should to another. There are serious equipment failures, such as a radar that informs incorrect position and velocity for an airplane. And there is a record of a trainee participating in the monitoring of aircraft on his first day on the job.
"The number of incidents in Brazilian air space is similar to Europe, where there are ten times more passengers"
[...]
On this point, it's important to clarify what sort of risk this is. In the two aviation disasters of recent months, 353 people died. Accidents on the country's roads and highways kill 36,000 people a year. Diseases linked to cigarettes, more than 200,000. It is much less dangerous to fly than to drive a car on a street. But, historically, society accepts fewer risks when dealing with flight.
One of the problems indicated by pilots and air traffic controllers is the recurring failure of radars (which allow seeing the flights' location and information) and of the communication frequencies by which airplane and tower stay in verbal contact. Internal Air Force reports show that errors can cause accidents. Such as that involving a Canadian airplane which was flying across Brazil on its way to Toronto, on June 3 of last year. An Air Canada Boeing 767-300 was leaving the region controlled by Cindacta 1, in Brasilia, to enter the area controlled by Cindacta 4, in Manaus. Without managing to make contact the the flight control centers, the Air Canada pilot began to circle in Brasilia air space, but did not appear on the controllers' screens. He was mute and invisible. Two North American aircraft, belonging to American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, flew in the direction of the Canadian airplane at the same altitude, 32,000 feet. Suddenly, the image of the Air Canada plane appeared on the screen of the Brasilia flight controller - and quickly vanished. Unable to contact the Canadian plane, the Brasilia controller detoured the two American planes and avoided a tragedy. In the Danger Report, a document the controller filled out soon after the incident, he affirmed that luck saved everyone from "a large difficulty". But warned: "Luck isn't always on our side".
Publicly, Air Force officers deny that the equipment problems are serious. Internally, the failures are recorded in detail. A report by aviator major Eduardo Yoshiaki Toda is an example. He investigated a breakdown in the information of of the radars that monitor the region between the city of Sinop and the Serra do Cachimbo mountain range, in Mato Grosso. On March 27, 2007, the radars showed mismatched information on the altitude, velocity and direction of flights TAM 3749 and GOL 1641. Until the anticollision alarm went off. The image on the monitor showed that the two aircraft were at the same altitude and position. The accident signal was a false alarm. The controller only knew that the airplanes hadn't crossed and that the information on the screen was wrong, after contacting both pilots by radio. According to aviator major Eduardo Toda's report, the controller was removed from work [NT: it's ambiguous as to temporarily or permanently] after panicking, thinking he had been part of a tragedy involving two large airliners. Toda's document emphasizes the "danger of the psychological factor" resulting from technical problems. If failures such as these are common, flight controllers may start to not believe important information coming from the radar and "one day be surprised by a real accident", said the report. It was in this same region that the Gol Boeing collided with a business jet, killing 154 people. Pilots and controllers dubbed the region "blind spot" or "black hole" because of the constant failures of radio frequencies and radar. The Air Force always denied that there are points in Brazilian air space not covered by radar.
[...]