Brazilian Midair: Were U.S. Pilots to Blame?

You just have to love the Brazilian government.

After eight months of pilot and air traffic controller interviews, the Federal Police there seem to have decided the only logical reason for last fall’s midair collision over the rainforest was that the two U.S. Legacy pilots failed to notice their transponder went inoperative. The broken transponder also rendered their Traffic Collision and Avoidance (TCAS) system useless.

No need to consider why the transponder on the aircraft failed, nor any need to note that Brazilian air traffic controllers never noticed the lack of a transponder signal for the last hour before the crash. At least there is no need to admit that publicly.

No need to fuss about the fact that neither sector of Brazilian ATC really understood that both aircraft were at the same altitude. No question about why the Boeing crew didn’t see the Legacy before the accident.

And why would anyone flying an airplane under any flag care that the two airplanes reached the same point in time and space on two completely different radio frequencies.

Nope. Joe and Jan were flying and it happened on their watch.

If only life could be so black and white.

Clearly the Brazilian ATC system is still a mess and the families of the Brazilian victims have been after someone’s head for months. Not surprisingly, President Lula offers up a couple of people from 7,000 miles away over which he has no control.

Should the pilots have noticed the transponder had died? In a perfect world, yes.

But for those of you who fly … think about how often you check the operation of your transponder during a flight. Have you ever seen the innocuous system used on an EFIS tube to alert the crew to the transponder being inop? We’ll probably all watch this more closely though, I’m certain, at least for awhile.

The Air Safety Issue

But what happens to the air traffic system now that Brazil has aired its angst? Isn’t this the very same ATC system the Brazilians just a few months ago said was so screwy it needed to be transferred to civilian control?

It actually doesn’t matter if this crash occurred in Brazil, China or the Congo. Criminalizing an aviation accident serves only one purpose, a politician’s … someone who has their back against the wall.

Little has actually changed in Brazilian airspace since the midair as hundreds of business airplanes and airliners continue flying this same airspace each day.

If we continue to brand pilots and air traffic controllers as criminals for accidents, rather than search for the real causes to improve air safety, passengers and crews will continue to risk paying the ultimate price each and every time they fly.

Technorati tags: Brazil+air+traffic+control, ATC, midair+collision, pilots, air+safety