Please Help Fellow Pilots Stuck In Brazil Come Home

[B190Captain]

We should respect the Brazilian Laws just as WE want the foreigners to respect our Laws.

Let the process play out.

By the way, why did these two pilots have their transponders off?
Or did they?

Some say the did, others say they didn't. Of course the FDR is the final word. Any comments?

Yes one comment, YOU ARE A MORON. Obviously you have no clue about corrupt goverments of third world countries such as Brasil. These guys need to be in US soil pending the investigation and not there as their lives could be in jeopardy.

What if you were one of them junior?

 

[flyer172r]

Just saw on AOPA's website that both pilots have had their passports returned to them and are free to come home. They are required to return to Brazil in the event of further legal action or inquiry.

 

[ASARJMan]

Just saw on AOPA's website that both pilots have had their passports returned to them and are free to come home. They are required to return to Brazil in the event of further legal action or inquiry.

It's true, saw it on the news.

 

[CAL EWR B737]

> Criminalizing Aviation Accidents Only Assures Repeats
> Brazilians Shouldn't Prosecute Humans for Being Human
>
> By JOHN NANCE
>
> Dec. 7, 2006- - On the clear, late afternoon of Sept. 29 , two
> sophisticated jets approached each other along an airway known as UZ6.
> Their combined speed was in excess of a 1,000 miles per hour. Both were
> at 37,000 feet over the Amazon jungle, and neither set of pilots were
> aware of the other.
>
> No alarms went off. No air traffic control warnings were given. And no
> rules were broken because both crews had climbed to their assigned
> altitude.
>
> In a micro-second, the left, upturned "winglet" of the brand-new Embraer
> Legacy 600 business jet sliced into the left wing of the Boeing 737. The
> Embraer's pilots knew only that an explosive force of some sort had
> rocked them, and that they now had a marginally controllable airplane.
>
> For the pilots of the commercial airline flight known as Gol 1907,
> however, the situation was far worse. Their essentially new Boeing 737
> was becoming uncontrollable. As the business jet they'd hit limped
> toward an emergency landing, the 737 impacted the dense forest below.
> All 137 people aboard died.
>
> Within hours of the crippled business jet's safe landing at an airfield
> just north of the collision point, the Brazilian government began
> investigating the accident with a painfully obvious emphasis on finding
> someone to blame, rather than finding an explanation for the tragedy.
>
> The passengers and owner of the damaged Embraer 600 -- held and
> questioned for 36 hours -- were eventually released.
>
> But even as another arm of the Brazilian government began to suspect
> that the crash had been nothing more than a tragic accident and not a
> result of any purposeful or negligent act by either set of pilots, an
> overzealous prosecutor was asking a Brazilian court for authority to
> confiscate the U.S. passports of the two American pilots.
>
> In the weeks afterward, Brazilian authorities confronted the truth --
> that their own air traffic controllers had made a massive human error by
> placing the two jets at the same altitude in opposite directions along
> the same airway.
>
> Yet no effort was made to present that evidence to the court and release
> the crew. Instead, the two American pilots -- both personally devastated
> over the loss of the 737 -- found themselves threatened with prosecution
> for 137 counts of manslaughter.
>
> Beyond the outrage that Brazilian officials have richly earned, Brazil's
> willingness to criminalize an aviation accident also dealt a serious
> blow to aviation safety worldwide. Why? Because most air accidents
> result from unintended human mistakes, and the only way we find out
> about such mistakes, and give ourselves the chance to change our human
> systems in order to prevent further incidents, is by asking surviving
> crew members to speak openly.
>
> But, if telling the truth about your own errors may land you in prison
> and ruin your life, who in their right mind would rush to give a
> prosecutor information that could be used against you? The result is
> that the mere threat of criminal prosecution for mistakes made in the
> cockpit (or the maintenance hangar or the control tower) utterly shuts
> down the flow of vital safety information we need.
>
>
> When a pilot flagrantly disregards rules or procedures or instructions
> and knowingly puts his or her passengers and the public below at risk,
> it's "pilot error."
>
> When a pilot fails because he or she is human -- failures such as
> starting a takeoff on a runway clearly too short to sustain flight (such
> as in Lexington, Ky., earlier this year) -- the problem is "human
> error." The two are markedly different.
>
> Human error problems account for more than 85 percent of all aviation
> accidents. Disasters often result from pilots being imperfect, making
> mistakes despite their best efforts. Blaming humans for being human is
> at once absurd and wholly ineffective in preventing accidents.
>
> The best way to prevent the same human errors from happening in the
> future is to understand everything we can about how the system supported
> the error, and then change that system to safely absorb such errors.
>
> Criminal prosecution of pilots for making human errors only shuts down
> the flow of information we need to get even safer; it does nothing to
> prevent recurrences.
>
> This does not mean that a pilot who purposefully does something unsafe
> (such as drink and fly) should not be held criminally liable. Subjecting
> such fringe-element airmen to prosecution in no way worries the 99-plus
> percent who would never do such things.
>
> But equating human mistake with crime, as some nations have tried to do
> too often over the years, is a trend that must be stopped cold.
>
> As the internationally respected Flight Safety Foundation said just this
> week in a joint resolution issued in response to Brazil's outrageous
> behavior: "...criminal investigations and prosecutions in the wake of
> aviation accidents can interfere with the efficient and effective
> investigation of accidents and prevent the timely and accurate
> determination of probable cause and issuance of recommendations to
> prevent recurrence."

 

[CAL EWR B737]

Av.Chedid Jafet, 222 – Block C- 5º floor
Rosana Marques
01451-001- São Paulo, SP Brasil
Manager
Phone: (55.11) 3094.2240

Fax : (55.11) 3094.2241
clipping
[email protected]
December 6th


G1 Globo On-line – December 6th


FEDERAL POLICE CAN ACCUSE LEGACY PILOTS FOR RISK TO AIR SECURITY

According to what G1 checked this Wednesday (6) the Federal Policy
studies, at the moment, the possibility to accuse the pilots Joe Lepore and
Jan Paladino for having put to danger the air traffic security. Lepore and
Paladino piloted Legacy jet that collided with Gol Boeing on September 29,
killing 154 people.

The penalty for this crime is of two to five years reclusion. In the same
article of the criminal code (261), is justified that, in case occurs the
fall or the destruction of an aircraft, the penalty can go up for 4 to 12
years. After the pilots depositions , the Federal Police can still decide to
accuse them for involuntary or fraudulent homicide. The FP scheduled for
this Friday (08) the deposition of the American pilots, in Rio De Janeiro.
As per the Federal Regional Court decision, the FP will have to return the
pilots´ passports until Friday at 6 PM (Brasilia time) . The passports were
retained for Brazilian Justicedecision.

The FP says that will only return Lapore and Paladino´s passports if they
sign a commitment term to answer to all the inquiryneeds. Even if they are
accused for some crime after rendering deposition, the pilots will be able
to leave the country and get back to the United States.

 

[CAL EWR B737]

From Brazzilmag.com....trouble looms, everyone. So the Federal Police are going to try to ignore the spirit and letter of the order...

Prosecutor and Police Try Last-Minute Maneuvers to Keep US Pilots in Brazil


Written by Roberto Espinoza
Thursday, 07 December 2006

Brazil's Public Attorney Office and Federal Police are doing their best to prevent that American pilots Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, implicated in the collision with the Boeing 737 on September 29, leave the country tomorrow as ordered by a Brazilian higher court of Justice.

Failing that they will try at least to leave a strong impression on those following the news of the release and on the pilots themselves.
The Federal Police, for example, before giving the passports back to the Americans, will try to indict Lepore and Paladino for what they call endangering Brazil's air traffic safety. For this crime the Brazilian legislation calls for 2 to 5 years in prison.

The penal code that determines this penalty also says that jail time might rise to up to 12 years in case a plane falls down or is destroyed.
The Boeing crashed on the Amazon jungle killing all 154 people aboard in what became Brazil's deadliest air tragedy ever. Charges of involuntary manslaughter or even culpable homicide are also in the cards.

Brasília's Regional Federal Court decision imposed a 6 pm deadline, this Friday, December 8, for the Federal Police to return the passports.
The federal authorities have also scheduled for Friday the Legacy jet pilots' testimony. They will not receive their documents back, the Federal Police has already made it clear, before signing a document in which they vow to fully cooperate with the criminal probe in the future, including flying to Brazil if necessary.

It hasn't been determined yet where the interrogation will occur. It could be in Brazilian capital Brasília or in Rio de Janeiro, where Lepore and Paladino have been in virtual house arrest in a hotel since the beginning of October.
Brasília would be the first choice, but due to the current chaos in the airports, taking the pilots from Rio to Brasília by plane might be unfeasible.
Public prosecutor Adriana Brocks should make up her mind today if she will appeal the 1st Region's (Federal District) Regional Federal Court decision to let the Americans go.

She told reporters on Wednesday that she hadn't received yet a copy of the regional court's order. Brocks wants to know in which juridical grounds the judges based their granting of habeas corpus relief before trying to reverse it.

 

[CAL EWR B737]

The following letter was sent to the CEO of CAL and the ALPA National Officers.


Gentlemen,

On Saturday December 9th First Officer Doug Marotta and I were honored to represent Continental Airlines and the Airline Pilots Association in welcoming back fellow pilots Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino.

Doug and I were graciously invited by ExcelAire Service CEO and President Bob Sherry to join more than two hundred family members, friends and colleagues to welcome back Joe and Jan. We all waited for the Embraer Legacy, the same type of aircraft involved in the mid-air collision, which carried Joe and Jan from Brazil at ExcelAire’s hanger at Long Island MacArthur in Ronkonkoma, N.Y.

This was truly an experience both Doug and I will remember for the rest of our lives. We participated and witnessed a very emotional homecoming, one that left very few with dry eyes. After Joe and Jan were so emotionally greeted, a press conference began. Afterwards we all enjoyed a catered lunch in the ExcelAire hanger.

Doug and I had the opportunity to talk at length with both Joe and Jan. We told both of them how very proud we all were, not only of their heroic landing of a severely damaged aircraft in the middle of the Amazon jungle, but also of how they handled themselves for the next seventy days of virtual incarceration in an extremely hostile environment. We expressed that they both represented the very best of professional aviation. Joe and Jan expressed sincere gratitude for all of the assistance provided by ALPA and their fellow peer pilots. I told them ALPA isn't just about negotiating and enforcing contracts, a big part of ALPA is pilots helping pilots.

We were also able to talk extensively with three individuals who were primarily responsible for Joe and Jan’s safe return. Mr. Robert Torricella , Joe and Jan’s Miami attorney, who was nothing short of amazing. He more closely resembled a friend of Joe and Jan’s with a life long bond than anything like the normal attorney-client type of relationship.

Robert, incredibly, spent seven of the ten weeks Joe and Jan were held captive in Brazil in the same hotel suite at the JW Marriott in Cabana Beach in Rio. The only reason he left their side was when it was absolutely necessary to return to the United States to attend to their defense. Robert told us he ate the same food, slept at the same time and constricted himself to the same physical and mental limitations as Joe and Jan. Sometimes that meant eating dinner at two in the afternoon or two in the morning as Joe and Jan’s body clock changed. He recalled one two-week period in which the three of them remained in one suite with the curtains closed never opening the door.

Robert stated that there would be no way he could ever express his gratitude to the staff at the JW Marriott Cabana Beach. He said that whatever Joe and Jan needed the staff bent over backwards to accommodate. This included clearing out the entire 17th floor by moving guests immediately out and providing security upon Robert’s request because the hotel was being infiltrated by the Brazilian paparazzi. When Joe and Jan needed to go outside, the staff secured the roof and provided security to allow Joe and Jan to get much needed fresh air. They also provided decoy cars out of the hotel to the Federal Court house for the media to follow when it was needed to safely and securely move Joe and Jan to other locations.

Robert asked me to forward to all of you that if there is any way in the future it would be possible you for you to provide business to the JW Marriott Cabana Beach, including booking airline crews for layovers, he would sincerely appreciate it.

Mr. Robert Sharkey, a reporter for the New York Times and fellow mid-air survivor on the Legacy, accurately documented the entire seventy-day ordeal. During this time period, there wasn't a day that he didn't update his blog at www.joesharkey.com or write an article in order to continue to keep media attention on this terrible injustice and help provide a medium for the huge support for so many, not only New York residents, but for people from all over the world.

Mr. Bob Sherry made sure every base was covered to bring home his two employees. His company paid $75,000 for the Legacy charter because he was very concerned about Joe’s and Jan’s safety and didn't want the two of them to spend a minute longer in Brazil than they had to. Even though this was Jan’s first trip with his company he was treated like he had been an employee with many years of longevity.

Bob wanted to make sure everyone understands that even though Joe and Jan are home the battle is far from over. Joe and Jan are still criminally charged and face extradition back to Brazil. The precedent of criminalization of US pilots flying abroad is significant and he asks that ALPA and Continental continue to use their political muscle to make sure this terrible injustice never happens again to anyone else. Bob also wanted everyone to know that U.S. Representative Peter King (NY) was the only politician to get involved and play a significant role in Joe’s and Jan’s return. Despite the many requests for assistance and many personal calls Bob had placed to New York Senators Clinton and Schumer pleading for help, never once did either of them take a moment to respond.

Thank you, everyone, for your significant assistance helping bring my new friends Joe and Jan safely back home. As stated in a sign a little girl was holding at the welcome home celebration, “you are the best holiday gift ever”.

I wish you and your families a safe and happy Holiday season.


Sincerely,


Captain Jayson Baron


Click here: New York Daily News - Home - Happy landing for two Yanks

 

[homerjdispatch]

Despite the many requests for assistance and many personal calls Bob had placed to New York Senators Clinton and Schumer pleading for help, never once did either of them take a moment to respond.

Click here: New York Daily News - Home - Happy landing for two Yanks

This is the part that really pisses me off.... Where are they when you need em?

 

[CAL EWR B737]

Click here: Pelican's Perch #81: It's a Jungle Down There

Good article