LI pilots did not prepare Brazil flight plan

Today brazilian press published the Legacy flight plan.
Pilots lied! They should be at 38,000 feet.

There are no set altitudes for Class A Controlled RVSM Airspace. ATC controllers only use that as a general guide to assign altitudes. The flight plan is a request only to ATC controllers. Only the lateral path is approved, air traffic controllers always assign altitudes (vertical path), pilots have no way of knowing where other traffic is located, thats why ATC controllers have radars. Using the transponder (TCAS) is a last chance safety device to avert an accident. The Legacy was assigned FL370 an hour before the 737 even took off, so obviously, the 737's assigned altitude of FL370 was not deconflicted with the Legacys which is exactly what air traffic control is supposed to do pn overlapping airways(UZ6).

Tim!
Sure, vertical separation does not absolutely have to follow the general set up for the route (odd/even). It's up to the controller to decide based upon the situation at hand. However, if you opt to breake the pattern you buy yourself extra work load, to monitor for conflicts that you would normaly not have if you adhear to standard procedures.
I totally disagree though about your conclusion that the situation, by definition, was not 'deconflicted'. What controllers constantly are doing is to detect and resolve potential conflicts, mostly long before they would occure. It is a dynamic process base on information and tools available. So, applying your view on deconflicting would lead to Chicago not issuing a clearance to fly 370 because LA already cleared another flight that level. Not many flights would be flying in the US if you apply that view.
TCAS did not warn. One of the transponders was not working, obviously. And it's clear which one. Why, remains to be seen.

/Steve

jay, you are so unilateral

ATC controllers were heard in legacy black box recording. Ask them to explain that! Seven calls were made, even blind transmissions were made. regulations are very clear, in case of communicatino failure, they should falow their flight plan.
Why did they fly on the wrong altitude? why did they turned radio volume down?

You are quite wrong my friend Carlos, as far as lost communication procedures. It states in ICAO rules that if lost communication is suspected, which it may or may not be ascertained at this point, that after the mode 3/a transponder is changed to code 7600, seven minutes after this has been accomplished, to adhere to the flight plan altitude. We do not know if the code was even changed, but if it was, this may explain the transponder failing since there is a problem with this Honeywell transponder when it is changed. However, the accident occured within a minute or two after the transponder failed, so the seven minute ICAO time period was never reached, hence a descent was NOT required.
It amazes me that you are aware of the 'black box'(its orange and its called a Solid State Cockpit Voice Recorder or SSCVR)...since it is in Canada and its contents have NOT been released to the public. The radio volume was not turned down according to your Air Force investigators. They were AT the altitude that they were CLEARED to by Air Traffic Control (CINDACTA-4) which unfortunately, also cleared the Gol 1907 flight to the same altitude. The ICAO reg's I refer to can be researched on the internet if you need help Carlos.

Tim, legacy should take airway UW2 from Sao Jose dos Campos to Brasilia at 37,000 feet then it should take airway UZ6 at 36,000 to Manaus. In teres (virtual) it should climb to 38,000.
15 minutes after they enter UZ6 transponder information could not be seen on radar screen (just the plot for the airplane could be seen, but no info from tranponder). CTA brasilia tryied to reach then for like ONE HOUR. This is recorded! Transmissions were then made in "blind mode" telling them radio frequencies to Manaus. As ICAO reg´s states, Air Traffic assumed that the plane would fallow his flight plan, which means 36,000 until teres and then 38,000. The Gol Boeing was at 37,000.

1 - legacy pilots never changed tranponder to 7600 (is on their statement for brazilian police, hours after the crash)
2 - legacy was NEVER cleared to level 37,000 AFTER brasilia. Again, in their statement they said they had no radio so they KEPT THEIR ALTITUDE.
3 - JUST AFTER CRASH transponder signal was received in CINDATCA radar, meaning the transponder was turned ON, or some mal-function was sudently repaired.
4 - JUST after crash pilots could stablish radio comunications again.

I don´t have any explanation for the radio AND tranponder simultaneously stop working other then being turned off so pilots could play a little with a new plane.

Again, they didn´t fallow ICAO reg´s. They lied on their statement for the police.
154 people died in a horrendous way, hitting ground alive and conscious. Some MAY even have survived for a few hours after impact.

If you need some help translating the reports from portuguese to english, I can help you too.

if the pilots were so sure they were correct, why did they lie and change their statements more than once ?
if you are not guilty you dont have to lie, just stick to the truth, which was not the pilots attitude.

Tim is completely mistaken.
The air traffic control in Brazil is one of the best and more modern of the world.
Search for statistics to see how many air crashes there are in Brazil, specially due to controllers fault.
Nobody is blaming the pilots. They are helping in the investigation. They are not in prison or being tortured.
Any serious country would do the same.
They might have the answers, and that´s what they are trying to find out.
So if Brazil is wrong to blame the pilots, Tim is also wrong to blame the Brazilian air traffic control.
Th pilots were not flying the correct altitude. You should inform yourself better, Tim.
What would you say about air traffic control in other countries ? Arent there any accidents in other countries ? More than there are in Brazil, you guess ?
And what about the air control in the US ? Were they able to stop the planes flying directly to the twin towers ?
What would happen to foreign pilots in the US if they were involved in an accident like that ?
So, before writing silly comments, inform yourself.
The results are not out yet. But even without any result from the investigation we have to blame someone, so let´s blame the air controllers. They are BRAZILIANS. The pilots were right, they are AMERICANS.
Another info for you:

This accident was the worst ever air accident in Brazil. Does this tell you something ?

If the air control system in Brazil was a disaster as you said, I would imagine we would have worst disasters, dont you think ?

As I believe you dont read portuguese, I´ll translate this for you, taken from one of the biggest and more respectable newspaper in Brazil, A FOLHA de Sao Paulo:´De acordo com o plano de vôo, no entanto, o Legacy deveria estar a 36 mil pés naquele momento.´´According to the flight plan, the legacy plane whould have been flying at 36 thousand feet at that time (of the collision).

But it was flying at 37. Why ? We dont know. So it´s more than fair that the pilots explain why, they were responsible for the legacy.

Tim, do you know that maybe what is taking longer to finish the investigation and see what really happened is the fact that there are parts of the body of 154 people to gather, spread miles along the deep jungle so the families can bury them ?
It´s not an easy job, but you wouldnt know that or even consider it.

Jay Tee,
There is nothing funny in a 154 victims accident.
They had a flight plan, they caled ATC 55 miles before brasilia and controler said "under radar surveilance". They expected that ATC would tell them to go to 36,000 whenever ATC found it necessary. ATC called them 7 times with no answer.

Usually there are several things contribuiting to an accident. The problem is tha pilots said they were told to stay at 37,000 FOR ALL TRIP.
If they give you an altitude and you loose radio contact, you should go to your flight plan, those are the ICAO reg's. Not to stay flying at the same level as they said. Just that.

I am American. This message is to all of you, with your various messages.
I do not like it when arrogant Americans talk down to citizens of other countries. I also don't like it when other countries' citizens look for any opportunity to trash any American that they can. Welcome to the 21st century. I am seeing both of these low brow behaviors from all directions. My wife is Brasilian and she was a little guilty of immediately blaming the damned Americans with no knowledge of what even happened. Brasilians hating Americans in general is often quite true. It is a thing promoted by the Brasilian government and their press. There is no excuse or explanation for this crap. I speak Portuguese, Spanish, and have been in South America a lot. They are great people down there. I have an idea. Why don't we let the investigation be completed by the experts and the people who actually know what they are talking about. Maybe we should save the pretense that we have a clue as to what happened for now. It would be nice to stop the ignorant innuendos also. People died and no one intentionally wanted an accident. It was terrible. This has nothing to do with what country anyone is from. A brand new Brasilian plane was being flown by Americans. A brand new American plane was being flown by Brasilians. Both planes being so new means that maybe both planes may have had some issues. Maybe all pilots the screwed up. Maybe none of them screwed up. Let's wait for the "real experts" to tell us what happened. In the mean time maybe you should all quit making asses out of yourselves and quit making statements that basically equate to being some kind of stone age racists. One other thing. In the U.S. we do not sit around trying to find something bad to say about Brasil, Spain, or any other civilized country. Maybe you should try to grow up and do the same, particulary Carlos and Karlla.

Dear Carlos and Karlla

Please read the information below that I cut and pasted (unaltered) from a news article titled "Brazilian Controller says errors were made".

(DIRECT FROM ARTICLE)
The controller, who said he was not involved in directing the aircraft, is among several Brazilian aviation experts who are now saying controller error appears to have contributed to the accident, which spared the private plane's pilots, but sent the Boeing into a dive, killing all 154 people aboard.

'It is always our responsibility to maintain the separations,' said the controller at the air traffic control center in Brasilia. He asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardizing his job.

'In this case, when you don't know the altitude, it is very dangerous,' he said.'I would have preferred to move them laterally, but it is always our responsibility to keep them separated.'

Renato Claudio Costa Pereira, a retired Air Force major general who led the International Civil Aviation Organization for six years until 2003, said controllers bore the responsibility for clearing traffic away from the Legacy corporate jet.
(END OF INFORMATION FROM ARTICLE)

Carlos and Karlla.
It appears that these Brasilian experts, unlike you, know what they are talking about. They seem to think that they made some mistakes by not telling either aircraft to avoid the other one for more than an HOUR (the hour was mentioned in another part of the article, read it yourself). Therefore let us now hear you scream some more about who screwed up, lied, or whatever. Are you going to claim these guys are lying too? Probably not because they are Brasilian and not Americans. Karlla let's hear some more about The Brasilian system being the best in the universe!! Unlike you racist bigots, I will say this. These Brasilian guys in the article are first class. They are honest, and have enough dignity to speak the truth even if it is something bad. Maybe you two should use these Brasilians as a role model so that in the future you won't seem so pity, racist, and down right ignorant in this public forum.

By the way, the first thing I thought when I saw the news about the crash on Globo was "Weren't the various control towers watching these planes?". The brave Brasilians above are now answering this question for me. I recall one of you two saying that maybe the Americans had their radio turned down or off. Well, Einstein, the 737 had a radio also. Maybe you would like to claim they had theirs off also? Personally I doubt it.

Once again, the issue is that 154 people died in an unnecessary and horrible way. Everyone feels terrible about this. Slinging mud serves no purpose. Neither does making up (inventing) a bunch of nonsense. In the end the experts will probably tell us that pilot errors, air traffic controller errors, and equipment failures all together caused this tragedy. None of it has anything to do with race, religion, color, or nationality. However some people, such as you Carlos and Karlla, always seem to try to make it that way. I wish I could say that I feel sorry for you, but to be honest I don't.

stan, you might write well, your written language is very good, but everything you said is not the truth.
You accuse other people of being racist and everything but you are doing the same things by attacking them.
This is a public forum and people have the right to write their opinions, that's freedom.
I feel sorry for you.

as always you never reply the arguments on the threads, just attack what you think it's anti american attitude. funny that the only people complaining about those posts are.......americans !!!
lol

Stan,

AFTER a crash it's very easy to say that any instruction from the controller could have saved everybody's life.

But ATC have very strict instructions to fallow. If they had done anything different and the collision occurred, then they would be in a deep problem.

ATC should fallow IMA-100 / 12 (7.14) which is a translation of ICAO regulations.
It is very clear (it will be easier for you since you also read in Portuguese) that ATC must SUPPOSE that an aircraft with LOST COMMUNICATIONS (remember that they were not able to talk to the pilots) is following its flight plans.
So ATC was SUPPOSING (like the reg’s say to be done) that Legacy was at 38,000 at that point (after teres check point).
Of course if they have moved the Gol Boeing they would have saved everyone, but what if legacy collided with Boeing on the new route and legacy pilot said he was going parallel to avoid a possible accident? ATC would be charged.

This “specialists” that press is quoting say what they THINK, they talk AFTER the accident. But the controller was only with a radar screen (that was showing 3?6 on his screen) and IMA 100 instructions to fallow, in that sense, they did not wrong.

What I want to know is why the transponder was off or in stand by?
Why radio was down? Were them in a blind point for communications? Is that hole so large that 7 attempts were made and they listen to none?

It is my understanding now that the voice recorders show that the last communication from the tower to the Legacy jet clearly instructed them to remain at 37,000 ft. Every one also knew that the Legacy jet was heading into a dead spot. I also saw on Globo that it is standard procedure to adhere to the towers last command if communication is lost. They said something like the towers last command takes precedence over all other standards and procedures if communication is lost and this applies in particular to the flight plan. At this point the various towers are to assume that this has occurred are are to take corrective action. Again, I am not an expert and am relying on what Globo Notica tells me. Investigation also has stated that the Legacy transponder failed, not that it was turned off. Does any one whether or not you can actually turn the transpoder off? I would think that there should be no way to turn it off. I have since seen on Globo that there are serious flight delays due to the fact that all the Brazilian air traffic controllers are being re-certified due to this tragic accident. I applaud Brasil for this step. I am not happy, sad, nor pleased that any particular people or agency has been found at fault. I am just sad that people were killed. I feel really bad for their families and for what the people must have felt as their plane went down. As far as Miss LOL Emilly goes I have to point something out. The American pilots were being attacked by various people who did not know what actually happened. These same people were convinced from the start that The Legacy pilots were at fault for a very simple reason that had nothing to do with any facts. We all know why they were so strongly attacked. It seems rather obvious to me why "only Americans" were complaining about this behavior. Does anyone actually expect the factless attacker to complain? I mean come on Emilly, LOL!!!!!! By the way, I did not see any Americans pointing the finger at the Brasilians saying "They lied" or "They did it". I wonder why? Can't anyone step back and see this besides me? The thing that pisses me off the most is that all I have seen in this forum is finger pointing in a purely nationalistic, racist and UNFACTUAL way. I have not seen anyone say something like "Let's pray for the victims and their families.". Unfortunately everyone was just too caught up in this feeding frenzy. I personally don't care who was at fault but rest assured that the investigators will tell us. They will do so based on facts alone in an UNBIASED WAY. I prayed for the victims and the families. 154 people were killed for nothing and no matter who was at fault that sucks. Again, as I have said before, when the investigation is complete we will probably see that everyone had some fault, not JUST SOME PARTICULAR CITIZENS OF A PARTICULAR COUNTRY. Gee, I guess I am saying that the Gringos screwed up too. Imagine that!!!

Stan Houston Texas wrote:

Investigation also has stated that the Legacy transponder failed, not that it was turned off. Does any one whether or not you can actually turn the transpoder off?

First off Stan I truly want to thank you for introducing an important note of reason and compassion to this discussion and like you my sympathies are with the victims but also with the investigators, whose task is often thankless for simply methodically seeking the objective truth after events such as these.

One of the worst things I have always noted about air crashes is that first they have an enormous amount of attention placed on them whereby we can learn from our mistakes (a good thing) and second the demand of the public for various reasons both good and ill attempt to force premature conclusions.
In answer to your specific question about transponders: Mode C and newer Mode S transponders have at least two ways (technically even more) they could be turned off and even if you took away the switch on the device, the pilots for reasons of safety must be able to turn off power with a circuit breaker to any device that is malfunctioning.
This could be for a number of reasons, from the threat of fire to the broadcast of erroneous information when the device malfunctions. I hope that helps.
BTW, I also agree that technically on an IFR plan the pilot is supposed to remain on the last instruction when communications are lost but not if that instruction essentially *expires* and then it would be to return to the specifics of the filed flight plan.
By expire what I mean is that usually an altitude restriction will also have a time or distance aspect like: " Hold below 19K feet till check point "X" (or a fixed amount of time) then resume climb".
Oh and while I haven't been flying for a while, yes I am a pilot though I admit I'm rusty on the current FAR's and ICAO's.

Jay,

Legacy black box records up to 2 hours. Take off recordings were recovered from ATC in SJC. If there was any intention to blame the "American" pilots they would have destroyed it.

First factor
These recordings say that the pilot was cleared to take off and climb to Manaus at level 370.
Controller says his intention was to say that the pilot should climb to 370 and then fallow his flight plan.
Pilots say that they understood that they were clear to go all the way to Manaus at 370 despite their flight plan.

Pilots will say that anything that ATC says supercedes the flight plan.
Controller will say that they only control the first 10nm from take off, that pilots should know their flight plans and ask.

This will take years of discussion..

Second factor:
Transponder AND radio from legacy were inoperative. This will take some years to find out why this happened. This kind of transponder is hard to operate and may be switched to STAND BY by mistake, But radio (that is integrated with transponder) would not be affected.
Maybe the transponder AND radio suffered some pane and locked up, but no one understands how they started working again just 10 seconds after collision.
With transponder off, TCAS was also inoperative and there was no warning before collision.

Each traffic controllers can take care of up to 14 planes simultaneously. In that specific day they were taking care of 4 to 5 planes each, so there was no overload on controllers.

The pilots flight all time in a linear route with no risky or playing maneuvers.

These are the preliminary conclusions. The official report is expected to 2008 second semester.

lol jay, ont play the victim, there must be a reason for the comments you read on various forums, think about it