On September 29, 2006, an aeroplane that was bound for the US from Brazil crashed mid-air, killing a total of 154 people.
The crash, which saw the Gol Transportes Boeing 737-800 passenger plane and Embraer Legacy 600 collide with each other, plunged Brazil into an aviation crisis and blame game.
The tragedy had a major impact on the Brazilian aviation industry – including flight delays, cancellations and strikes.
While seven people onboard the Embraer, operated by ExcelAire, survived, everyone on board the Boeing plane died after it dove into the Amazon rainforest.
The crash that changed everything
Shortly before the collision, the Gol Transported Aereos Flight 1907 was whizzing through the air from Manaus towards Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro.
The Embraer jet, meanwhile, was on its way from an airport near Sao Paulo to the US with a pitstop in Manaus, piloted by captain Joseph Lepore and first officer Jan Paul Paladino.
Between them, they had more than 30 years of experience and thousands of flight hours.
But everything went horrendously wrong around two hours into the flight when the two jets came face to face.
The left winglet of the Embraer sliced off around half of the Boeing’s left wing.
Although its engine remained attached, the 737 nosedived before spinning uncontrollably. The violent motion caused the plane to break up and the cockpit voice recorded cut off two minutes after the collision.
The Boeing crashed into the rainforest in a remote area, around 124 miles east of Peixoto de Azevedo municipality.
Miraculously, the Embraer managed to continue flying and land at an airport about 100 miles away.
Joe Sharkey, a passenger on the Embraer and a journalist, recalled the devastating moment to the The New York Times, saying it had initially been ‘a nice ride’ before the crash.
He had wandered up to the cockpit to ‘chat with the pilots’ where the display showed the jet’s altitude as 37,000 feet just minutes before the collision.
The crew were detained and the ‘black boxes’ were removed for analysis. The pilots were detained in Brazil before being allowed to travel to the US if promising to return to the country for the trials.
The investigators were desperate to find out how two modern jets with anti-collision tools could crash.
They found that the air traffic control and the Embraer jet had tried to unsuccessfully contact each other amid loss of contact radar minutes before the flight. It also found that the jet’s collision avoidance system was ‘not functioning.’
Later reports by Brazilian and US authorities said both the air traffic control and the Embraer’s ExcelAir pilots contributed to the accident, including improper clearance for the aircraft.
The pilots were blamed for failing to spot the transponder was switched off, meaning the collision avoidance system had been switched off.
Aviation crisis and the subsequent chaos
The crash sparked one of Brazil’s biggest aviation crises after air traffic staff felt the immediate investigation pointed a finger at alleged errors.
Tensions had already been brewing among controllers, made worse by the ‘poor’ labour relations with the military superior in charge of air traffic control at the time, according to Time magazine.
They said they had been overworked, underpaid, stressed and had to use old equipment, the CENIPA report detailed.
Controllers staged walkouts and even a hunger strike, plunging Brazilian aviation industry into chaos – delays, disruptions, stranded passengers, cancelled flights and demonstrations.
The action appeared successful when the President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvaappointed a new defense minister in charge of aviation and pledged to improve the country’s air traffic control system.
What happened to the pilots and the air traffic controllers?
The victims’ families faced a long and frustrating wait for justice.
Four years later, two air traffic controllers were sentenced over the crash and failing to take action, while four others were acquitted.
The American pilots were ordered to return to Brazil to serve their sentences after being convicted for their role in the crash.
However, US authorities rejected the request for their extradition to Brazil last year until in last June, A Brazilian judge dismissed the case against the pair due to the statute of limitations expiring, according to Aviation International News.
Airplane safety in Brazil
In August, a Brazilian plane crashed near a residential area outside Sao Paulo, killing 62 people on board.
Just minutes before crashing, the pilots had reported a failure with the plane’s de-icing system – a hypothesis put forward by aviation experts following the tragedy.
A year before the Boeing crashed into the Amazon, a TAM Airlines plane overran the runway at Sao Paulo airport after landing, crashing into a nearby warehouse.
It exploded on impact, killing 187 passengers and crew and 12 people on the ground.
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