Business jet flow at wrong altitude causing collision: official

The small business jet which collided with a local GOL Airlines Boeing-737 on Sept. 29, killing 154 people aboard the airliner, had been at the wrong altitude, said a senior police officer on Tuesday.

A flight plan released by the Brazilian airplane manufacturer Embraer, operated by U.S.-based ExcelAir, indicated that the Legacy jet should not have been flying at 37,000 feet, said Luciano Inacio da Silva, police chief of Mato Grosso state, where the Boeing crashed.

The flight plan, authorized by Brazil's Air Traffic Control System, showed that the chartered jet, which took off from Sao Paulo, in southeast Brazil, was required to fly at a 37,000 feet altitude to Brasilia, Brazil's capital.

From Brasilia, it was supposed to fly at 36,000 feet, which would have prevented it from being at the same altitude as GOL's plane while they flew over Mato Gosso state.

After the accident, the two U.S. citizens who piloted the jet, Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, said in their testimony to Brazil's police that the flight plan had only determined that they flew at 37,000 feet, which was contradicted by the document released by Embraer.

Da Silva, who is in charge of investigating the collision, said that he would call the two pilots back for further testimony.

The Legacy jet, which had one of its wings damaged, made an emergency landing after the midair crash. The jet and its two pilots have been prohibited from leaving the country until the end of the investigation.

The crash was the biggest air accident in Brazil's aviation history, and local public opinion has blamed the U.S. pilots for the collision.

Source: Xinhua