Please Help Fellow Pilots Stuck In Brazil Come Home

[phishn@daves]

Sarcastic right?

I thought that was obvious. I guess I'll use the next time.

 

[handlesaregay]

It looks like they are being released:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/05/america/LA_GEN_Brazil_Plane_Crash.php

 

[CAL EWR B737]

Everyone keep your fingers crossed but I'm not celerbrating until they are back on US soil. Thanks to everyone for your support.

 

[dumblonde]

Great 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."

 

[crash-proof]

New Twist: they are being charged

Oh-oh... Article doesn't mention exactly what the charge is...this is baffling considering they were just granted their passports!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/12/08/brazil.pilots.ap/index.html

 

[Swass]

What are the odds they will go back for the trial?

 

[CAL EWR B737]

Sorry for the late post. I have been away from a computer for some time.

Someone please find the link to the video news coverage of yesterdays historic event and post it as there was quite a bit of news media present.

On Saturday, December 9, 2006 I was honored to be invited by ExcelAire President Bob Sherry to join 200 family, friends and colleagues of Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino to meet Joe and Jan's aircraft upon arrival from Brazil in Islip New York.

It was a very emotional time and great celebration seeing these two heroes come back home! I was very honored to meet both Joe and Jan for the first time and was able to talk with them for quite a few minutes. I did my best to relay to the both of them the huge outpouring of support and assistance from their peers on this and other aviation forums. I told them we were all so proud of them and extremely happy for their safe return.

I have so much more to say on yesterdays event but unfortunately it will have to wait a day or so until I have time to gather my thoughts. Yesterday was a very emotional day and being away from home on a computer from kinko's I can't do this justice with only a few paragraphs.

To everyone on this forum who took the time to write your elected leaders and who kept Joe and Jan in you prayers and thoughts THANK YOU!

Fraternally,

Jayson Baron