Questions multiply in Brazil air disaster probe

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2006

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) — Six days after a mid-air collision over the Amazon jungle killed 155 people in Brazil's worst air tragedy, a raft of key questions about what caused the disaster went unanswered. A small business jet, with two US pilots, and a GOL airline's Boeing 737 collided; the smaller plane managed to land safely, but the GOL jet's passengers and crew perished on the jungle floor.

Brazilian authorities on Wednesday detained two US pilots to face possible manslaughter charges. Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino were the pilot and co-pilot of an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet that collided last Friday with a Boeing 737 belonging to GOL airline at 11,200 meters (37,000 feet). A judge in Mato Grasso state, where the GOL plane crashed, ordered their passports confiscated....