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Originally Posted by aau
Looks like the victims' families are going to sue two of the US companies involved with the crash:
As of right now it's a "secret" investigation by the Brazilian Military and it seems the military run ATC in Brazil may have played a role in the tragic accident. If the Brazilian ATC is at fault, that could also drag out discovery, especially if they're not forethcoming with information. Hopefully the civil case will give what is happening more exposure in the press. Joe Sharkey was on the ball from day 1 when he made the comments about his concern for the pilots fate. |
Never said anything like that - J Sharkey
Originally Posted by JumboJet
Luckily I don't have any experience in this type of accident but I don't think it is unusual to have differing eyewitness accounts of the same accident.
At the time of impact, I was working on a laptop with the window shade drawn and I heard the loud bang and felt a sharp concussion. One pilot and one passenger later reported seeing what they described as a "fleeting shadow." Test pilots and other experts have told me this is what you see in an event like that, with 2 planes colliding at a combined speed in excess of 1,000 mph. The visual impression is a very tiny fraction of a second. A Brazilian Air Force 10-point widely e-mailed around weeks ago (and widely considered to be definitive) shows drawings of the collision in which a 10-foot section of the 737's left wing appeared to have been shorn off by the left winglet of the Legacy (which in turn was shorn away). The 737 wing section then hit the Legacy tail. Meanwhile, the 737 flipped sideways and went into its death spiral. Joe Sharkey |
what kind of a journo?
Originally Posted by mbstone
What the hell kind of journo survives a midair and doesn't even file.
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old news here but just for the record
Originally Posted by mbstone
I'm glad the guy is unhurt -- as far as we know his drink didn't even get spilled -- but Great Caesar's Ghost, can't you imagine some stereotypical newspaper editor screaming into the phone, steam coming out of both his ears, demanding to know why the reporter hadn't filed yet?
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old news here but just for the record
Originally Posted by mbstone
I'm glad the guy is unhurt -- as far as we know his drink didn't even get spilled -- but Great Caesar's Ghost, can't you imagine some stereotypical newspaper editor screaming into the phone, steam coming out of both his ears, demanding to know why the reporter hadn't filed yet?
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Originally Posted by jsharkey
As the only witness able to talk about it, I've been trying to keep the overall record straight on the Sept. 29 crash, and have just noticed this post saying I said I saw the Boeing tilt. For the record, I never said or wrote anything remotely like that. No one did. We who were on the Legacy did not even know we'd collided with another airplane until we were told so 3 hours after making our emergency landing at the jungle air base.
At the time of impact, I was working on a laptop with the window shade drawn and I heard the loud bang and felt a sharp concussion. One pilot and one passenger later reported seeing what they described as a "fleeting shadow." Test pilots and other experts have told me this is what you see in an event like that, with 2 planes colliding at a combined speed in excess of 1,000 mph. The visual impression is a very tiny fraction of a second. A Brazilian Air Force 10-point widely e-mailed around weeks ago (and widely considered to be definitive) shows drawings of the collision in which a 10-foot section of the 737's left wing appeared to have been shorn off by the left winglet of the Legacy (which in turn was shorn away). The 737 wing section then hit the Legacy tail. Meanwhile, the 737 flipped sideways and went into its death spiral. Joe Sharkey Please show me where I said anything about the Boeing tilting :confused: :confused: I stand by my statement that OFTEN times there are differing eyewitness accounts to the same accident. I know this thread is all about you :rolleyes: but I was responding to this post:
Originally Posted by mHolanda
The pilots' version went on air just now...And they don't match.
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NTSB Factual Information Release Nov 22 2006
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The Legacy N600XL departed SBSJ at about 2:51 pm. The filed flight plan included a routing via the OREN departure procedure to Pocos beacon, then airway UW2 to Brasilia VOR (BRS), airway UZ6 to Manaus. The cruise altitude was filed as FL370, with a planned change to FL360 at BRS, and to FL380 at the TERES navigational fix, approximately 282 miles north of BRS. After takeoff, N600XL was issued a number of interim altitudes during climb, all of which were read back. The flight was cleared to proceed direct to Araxa VOR (on airway UW2), and at 3:11 pm was cleared to climb to FL370. At 3:33 pm, the airplane leveled at FL370. At 3:35 pm, the Boeing 737 departed Eduardo Gomes airport, requesting FL370 as a cruise altitude, and a routing via UZ6 to BRS. The airplane reached FL370 at 3:58 pm. There were no anomalies in communications with or radar surveillance of the Boeing 737 throughout the flight. At 3:51 pm, an air traffic controller in the Brasilia ACC (CINDACTA 1) instructed N600XL to change frequencies to the next controller's sector. The crew of N600XL reported in on the assigned frequency that the flight was level at FL370. ATC acknowledged and instructed the crew to "ident" (flash their transponder). Radar indicates that the ident was observed. This was the last two-way communication between N600XL and ATC. At this time the airplane was approximately 40 nautical miles south of BRS. At 3:56pm the Legacy N600XL passed BRS level at FL370. There is no record of a request from N600XL to the control agencies to conduct a change of altitude, after reaching flight level 370. The airplane made calls, but there is no communication in which it requested a change of flight level. There is also no record of any instruction from air traffic controllers at Brasilia Center to the aircraft, directing a change of altitude. When the airplane was about 30 miles north-northwest of BRS, at 4:02 pm, the transponder of N600XL was no longer being received by ATC radar. A transponder reports a unique code, aiding radar identification, and provides an accurate indication of the airplane's altitude. Additionally, the transponder is a required component for the operation of Traffic Collision Avoidance System equipment, commonly called the TCAS system. Between 3:51 pm and 4:26 pm, there were no attempts to establish radio communications from either the crew of N600XL or ATC. At 4:26 pm the CINDACTA 1 controller made a "blind call" to N600XL. Subsequently until 4:53 pm, the controller made an additional 6 radio calls attempting to establish contact. The 4:53 call instructed the crew to change to frequencies 123.32 or 126.45. No replies were received. |
If this report is correct re FL370, then I can't for the life of me see how the pilots could face any criminal liability. They might not even face civil liability. Unless the Brazillian authorities have some compelling evidence they haven't yet announced, these pilots should be free to return home post haste.
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Originally Posted by dhuey
If this report is correct re FL370, then I can't for the life of me see how the pilots could face any criminal liability. They might not even face civil liability. Unless the Brazillian authorities have some compelling evidence they haven't yet announced, these pilots should be free to return home post haste.
Well the big question is why the transponder was off. |
Originally Posted by roundtheworld
Well the big question is why the transponder was off.
Some hopeful signs ... Brazil's ATC chief has been fired, BTW, and rumor is the defense minister is next. http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/7581/53/ From the story: After watching the country's air crisis from a distance while his Defense Minister, Air Force commander and flight controllers digladiated and brought Brazil's commercial aviation to its knees, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva decided to intervene in the chaos. And started by firing Paulo Roberto Cardoso Vilarinho, the Air Space Control Department (Decea) chief, the man in charge of all the air traffic control centers in the country. The cleaning up included the Decea's second in command, vice-director major brigadier Ailton dos Santos Pohlmann. <snip> Minister Pires and just-fired Vilarinho have something in common though: both agree that the Brazilian air space has no blind spots. Something that the air controllers vehemently dispute. In testimonies given the Federal Police in the last few days 13 flight controllers insisted that Brazil not only has a blind zone, it has what they called a "blind, deaf and mute" zone in the Amazon, an area in which no contact is possible between the control tower and airplanes. On another aerial front, the Military Justice's general prosecutor, Giovanni Rattacaso accused the president of the Air Traffic Controllers Brazilian Association, Wellington Rodrigues, of promoting "terrorism" in order to hide mistakes made by air controllers in the case involving Brazil's worst air accident ever, the collision between a Boeing 737 and a Legacy executive jet, that resulted in the death of the 154 people inside the Boeing. Rattacaso is in charge of investigating the investigations being made by the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) on possible mistakes made by their own personnel, since air control in Brazil is an attribution of the FAB. According to Rattacaso, Rodrigues was the Cindacta's 1 (Brasília's Air Control Center) supervisor on September 29, the day the Boeing tragedy occurred, but he wasn't at his post at the time of the accident. ... |
Originally Posted by roundtheworld
Well the big question is why the transponder was off.
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Today's (or is it tomorrow's?) news on this ...
Problems With Brazil ATC, Cockpit Systems, IFATCA Says November 30, 2006 By Mary Grady, Contributing Editor Brazil's ATC software is badly designed, contributing to an "unsafe and dangerous" system, the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Associations (IFATCA) alleges. The radar display will automatically indicate a change in altitude to the assigned flight level, without confirmation from a controller, it says. Thus, the screen apparently showed the Legacy jet at FL360, as assigned, even though no communications between the pilots and ATC confirmed the change in altitude, IFATCA says, and the jet never made that change. "Information we have gathered tells us that this 'discrepancy' happens several times a day and is a 'common scenario' for ACC Brasilia...IFATCA believes that operators in the air (the pilots), and on ground (the controllers), fell victim to unacceptable systems traps brought on by 'non-error tolerant' and 'bad system design' of air traffic control and flight equipment in use." The entire article may be viewed at http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/12_4..._193859-1.html |
Originally Posted by jsharkey
(Post 6752716)
After the crash we all were held imncommunicado for two days and nights first at the jungle air base and then at police h.q. in cuiadad. I wasn't allowed to use the phone. I managed to get a fast, garbled e mail out the first night by sneaking onto a computer in a barracks, and was busted before I could get out more than a few sentences. Just trying to keep the record straight, quite a chore even 2 months later :rolleyes: . J Sharkey
Do you see any contradiction between the two texts? According to the post, "we all were held imncommunicado for two days and nights first at the jungle air base and then at police h.q. in cuiadad. I wasn't allowed to use the phone.." The situation seems not to be quite the same, in the Sunday Times story: "Several of us were allowed to use a phone in the commander’s office." Sharkey goes on to insinuate that due to some military collusion, his phone calls didn't go through. As we can see, Sharkey himself admits in the article that the Legacy's crew and passengers were not held incommunicado. And nothing in his words, albeit his personal, rather paranoid suspicion, can lead us to the assumption that he was prohibited to place phone calls. When it comes to the use of a computer for Sharkey to send his e-mails, the contradiction between the two texts is even more accentuated. According to the post on this forum, Sharkey "sneaked onto a computer in a barracks" (how thrilling...) but was "busted" etc. etc... In the Sunday Times story, we see the same Sharkey being taken into a barracks by a soldier who actually let him use a computer - which didn't work because the system was "blocked" (though it was not blocked according to the post on this forum). Is Sharkey a liar after all? I don't think so. I think the Sharkey that posts his messages here is not the same Sharkey that writes stories on newspapers. |
Originally Posted by Wiken
(Post 6774279)
...Is Sharkey a liar after all? I don't think so. I think the Sharkey that posts his messages here is not the same Sharkey that writes stories on newspapers.
Journalists are generally very easy to reach. They need to be. |
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