Brazil crash report benefits U.S. pilots - lawyer
By Andrei Khalip
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Lawyers for two U.S. pilots being investigated over Brazil's worst air disaster demanded on Friday their release from Brazil, saying the crash report showed their jet was flying at the proper altitude.
Police seized the passports of Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino a few days after the Sept. 29 crash of a Boeing passenger jet, which clipped wings in midair with a smaller jet piloted by the Americans for ExcelAire charter service of New York.
All 154 people aboard the Boeing, flown by Brazil's airline Gol (GOL.N:
Quote,
Profile,
Research), died as it plunged into the Amazon forest. The smaller Embraer Legacy jet lost a winglet, but landed safely.
"We are challenging the continued retention of their passports, which is in violation of the law," Theo Dias, a criminal defense counsel for the pilots, told Reuters.
He said Brazilian law did not allow people to be detained in the case of a suspected unintentional crime and forbade unequal treatment of Brazilians and foreigners. The two Americans were the only ones involved in the incident to have their freedom of movement restricted.
The government on Thursday released its first official report on the crash, which did not assign blame for the disaster. It said pilots and air traffic controllers made a flurry of unanswered calls to each other before the crash.
Investigators still need to find out why the dozens of radio calls went unanswered, why neither plane's anti-collision system issued alerts, and why they flew toward each other at 37,000 feet (11,280 metres).
Col. Rufino Antonio da Silva Ferreira, the head of the federal investigation, said the pilots should be freed, although only courts have the authority to let them go.
FALSE ACCUSATIONS' Robert Torricella, another lawyer for the pilots, said he saw the report as giving "positive signs" for the American pilots.
"The report proves what we have been saying all along -- that there has been a number of false accusations about Joe and Jan," he said, referring to previous comments by some officials the Legacy pilots were performing aerial stunts before the crash to test the new plane.
"The report proves that the Legacy was flying at the proper altitude," Torricella said.
He said that according to the report, air traffic control knew the Legacy maintained an altitude of 37,000 feet for at least 10 minutes after it passed the control hub in Brasilia and did not instruct it to change altitude.
The two pilots have been staying in a luxury Rio de Janeiro hotel for more than a month while they await the outcome of the investigation.
"Things are difficult for Joe and Jan right now and they are getting more and more difficult as time passes, both for them and their families. They are separated from their wives. Joe's children have not seen their father in almost two months. This situation is entirely unjust," Torricella said.
Dias said there was no reason for keeping them detained in Brazil as the two "have every intention of cooperating with these investigations because they want to clear their names."
The U.S. Air Line Pilots Association and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations issued a statement urging their release.
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