While “e” stands for “electrical”, VTOL means vertical takeoff and landing, a technology turning runways obsolete. According to company projections, Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) should certify this unmanned vehicle in 2026, after which it is expected to be the first choice for users willing to skip traffic jams.

The idea is to take passengers from the city center to the airport in minutes and with no CO2 emissions. Eve’s national plant is to start operating in 2026 when deliveries of the flying car are expected to begin.

Eve’s device uses take-off and cruise configuration “with dedicated rotors for vertical flight and fixed wings for the cruise stage without the need for in-flight transition components,” it was explained. It also includes a propeller powered by dual electric motors, which reduces operating costs and noise.

In the meantime, the model will be subject to countless safety and operation tests. Eve’s CEO Johann Bordais also announced flight tests will begin by early 2025. He also outlined the manufacturer’s plans to have five more prototypes airborne by next year, gearing up for a pre-series model in the certification process.

In 2022, Eve secured US$ 400 million at the NYSE of the US$ 540 million needed for the eVTOL venture. The company also received a US$ 92 million loan from Brazil’s Development Bank (BNDES) as well as an additional US$ 94 million from Embraer and Japanese suppliers Nidec, which have rendered Eve operational at least until 2027, it was reported.

Eve is said to have some 3,000 potential customers, including United Airlines and Global Crossing. “This is an important step that reinforces our commitment to safety, accessibility, and innovation,” Bordais stressed.

“As we turn our attention to preparing for a rigorous test campaign, we won’t just be creating an aircraft, but building a comprehensive ecosystem of solutions that will shape the future of the Advanced Air Mobility industry,” he added.

Embraer is the third-largest aircraft manufacturer in the world and the market leader in regional commercial and executive models. It also produces defense and agriculture models. Since it was founded in 1969, it has delivered over 8,000 aircraft to operators worldwide.

Manufactured at the Taubaté plant in the State of São Paulo, the first EVE-100s are expected to be delivered in 2026. According to Eve Air Mobility, a journey in Miami (USA) that would take 45 minutes by car would take 15 minutes with the EVE-100. The estimated range is 100 kilometers, due to which it will be limited to urban transport, at least in the early stages.

Mercopress

Most significantly, the supply chain of the two companies will become more profitable and competitive, as the deal should officially be concluded by 2019.

But there has been recent resistance to the deal, primarily from PT (Workers Party) lawmakers who have filed a suit with the Brazilian government to stymie the venture.

While Embraer is a private entity, the Brazilian government has veto power for major business agreements, and the move to block the deal is indicative of this intricate political and corporate relationship.

A model company of Brazilian national prowess and a world leader in
aviation production, Embraer was formed in 1969 as a government-owned
corporation.

Headquartered in São José dos Campos, in the interior of São Paulo state, the company has a long history of development both as a regional and international producer, representing the first major company to develop Brazil’s aviation industry.

With a focus initially on military aircraft, by the 1980s, the company developed a significant capacity for regional airline construction, and was eventually privatized in 1994. By 2000, Embraer had listings on Brazil’s Bovespa, and the New York stock exchange as an ADR.

Currently, Embraer’s focus is primarily on commercial, military, corporate, aviation with offices in 10 Brazilian cities and 17 cities around the world. The company is the world’s third largest producer of civil aircraft, and provides services to approximately 100 countries.

Boeing’s takeover of Embraer will have implications for the upcoming presidential election in October. Although Brazilian president Michel Temer will be expected to approve the venture, the deal will not be finalized until after October.

As an indication of the dicey nature of the political response to the takeover, presidential candidate Ciro Gomes has expressed his disapproval and would probably nullify the deal, while Jair Bolsonaro, another candidate, would probably support it.

While the joint development of the KC-390 is a priority, the two companies will seek to penetrate the commercial market and significantly integrate production, research and development.

If the deal eventually goes through, the partnership signifies the impressive way in which Boeing and Embraer can come to dominate the international airline production industry, particularly in response to the recent consolidation of main rivals, Airbus and Bombardier.

With a solid history, profile, and adaptability, Embraer will seek to bolster its mission as a dynamic force under the aegis of Boeing. Despite the contentious political scene, the venture between the two companies represents the ongoing drive for corporate and industrial integration of Brazil’s “national champion,” Embraer.

“We will examine it in the beginning of next year. At the moment, we are only focused on the domestic agenda,” Jobim said on the sidelines of a business forum in southern France.

Brazil, which wants to rebuild and expand its dilapidated fleet of air force jets, has been considering offers from France’s Dassault Aviation, Boeing and Sweden’s Saab.

The Brazilian contract will likely be worth much more than the initial bids, which have been reported by Brazilian media at about 4 to 6 billion US dollars. Maintenance contracts will be lucrative, and Brazil could eventually buy more than 100 aircraft.

Aside from the price and tactical considerations of Dassault’s Rafale, Boeing’s F-18 and Saab’s Griffon, Brazil demands a technology transfer to help create jobs by manufacturing modern fighters at home and potentially exporting them to neighbors in Latin America.

“The principal necessity is on technology transfer,” said Jobim, who declined to say which of the three offers Brazil was leaning towards.

Dassault’s Rafale had appeared close to clinching its first foreign deal with ex Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had said he preferred the French plane over its rivals.

But Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, appears to be leaning towards Boeing’s F-18 Super Hornet after saying she wanted to rethink all the finalists’ bids. Since taking office in January, Rousseff has pursued stronger political ties with the United States.

Mercopress

The announcement was made during the visit of French president Nicholas Sarkozy, following the signing of agreements involving US$ 12.5 billion for the purchase of four conventional submarines, one nuclear powered and 50 transport helicopters. All include the transfer of technology.

"Taking into account the amplitude of technological transfers proposed and guarantees offered by the French side, President Lula da Silva announced the decision of the Brazilian side to enter negotiations with GIA Rafale for the purchase of 36 combat aircraft," said the official Planalto release.

However the release is not clear as to whether Brazil has opted for the Rafale as the fighter chosen for the renewal of the Brazilian Air Force. Sweden's Saab and its Gripen and the US Boeing with the F-18 Super Hornet are also competing for the contract which initially was estimated in US$ 2.5 to US$ 3 billion.

President Sarkozy confirmed that France will purchase a dozen KC-390 transport aircrafts to be manufactured in Brazil and which will replace the ageing US built Hercules C-130.

"We wish to purchase Brazilian aircrafts; negotiations have begun," revealed Sarkozy during the press conference.

As to the Rafale combat aircrafts Lula said that the beginning of negotiations does not mean Brazil has discarded the other options: the Gripen or the F-18 Super Hornets. "For us the most important is access to technology and that is what we are negotiating with the French Defense ministry and the manufacturer", said Lula following talks with Sarkozy.

Lula insisted that Brazil's interest is having access to technology so as to develop the Brazilian aeronautical industry.

Sarkozy said France is not fearful of technology transfer to Brazil, "France is a reliable partner, efficient; sharing technology does not scare us." He added France wishes to jointly develop the air industry in Brazil, "a great industry, manufacture planes together and sell them together."

"The relationship between Brazil and France is not one of supplier and client, but of partners. We want to act together because we share the same values and a same vision on the big international goals," added Sarkozy.

The French president and a delegation of eight ministers and businessmen arrived on Sunday in Brazil for the cooperation defense agreements and political talks. Sarkozy was the guest of honor at the country's main military parade September 7, Brazilian Independence Day.

Brazilian officials are expected to announce the winner of the bid in October.

Mercopress

According to Embraer's president, Frederico Fleury Curado, each plane will cost 84 million reais (US$ 51 million) and will have special configuration to accommodate authorities.

The first aircraft is expected to be delivered next year in March and the second by November 2009. Saito says the old planes in the presidential fleet represent a high operational onus.

The new aircraft are going to replace 34-year-old Boeings 737-200, which serve as backups for the Brazilian Air Force One, also known as Aero Lula, an Airbus 319.  These backups are affectionately known as Sucatinha (Little Junks). 

Just last Friday, May 30, one of the Sucatinhas had a windscreen crackled while returning from a trip from El Salvador to Brazil.

The Brazilian presidency will soon be putting for sale both of its old Boeings, Little Junk and Big Junk.

Curado revealed that the vintage Boeings have been suffering "complex breakdowns" and required installation of new equipment. Moreover, they are gas guzzlers and don't have proper personnel to maintain them.

"The Airbus will continue to be the presidency's main plane while the Embraer will be used as backup since the aircraft has autonomy to fly to any South American capital," Curado said.

The Embraer planes will be operated by the Special Transportation Group (Grupo de Transporte Especial – GTE) of the Brazilian Air Force (Força Aérea Brasileira – FAB), which serves the President of the Republic, ministries, presidential departments, and officials from the legislative and judiciary branches.

"It will be an honor and a source of pride for all of Embraer's employees to see our EMBRAER 190 flying in the colors of the Federal Republic of Brazil," said Curado.

"We are certain that the attributes that have provided the underpinnings of the success of this aircraft model worldwide – comfort, safety, performance, advanced technology, and economical operations – will contribute to the excellence of the GTE's operations as it fulfills its mission within the scope of the Brazilian Air Force and the Brazilian government."

The aircraft will be configured with special communications systems, as well as a private area for the President, including space for meetings. It will also have capacity for carrying around 40 passengers.

"Embraer is a worldwide benchmark for the aeronautical industry, and the purchase of these new aircraft is in harmony with the objectives of the nation's industrial development policies," said Saito.

The FAB (Brazilian Air Force) already operates other transportation aircraft manufactured by Embraer, like the ERJ 145, Legacy 600, and EMB 120 Brasí­lia models.

Besides these, other members of the military fleet projected and manufactured in Brazil are the AMX, Tucano, Super Tucano, and the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) airplanes operated by the Amazon Surveillance System (Sistema de Vigilância da Amazônia – SIVAM).

Boeing believes that demand for air travel in Latin America, mainly from Brazil and Mexico, will see the region buy 1,730 planes worth 120 billion US dollars over the next 20 years.

Plane travel in the region will grow on an annual basis of 6.6% over the two decades, second only to China's expected growth of 8.8% and above the world average of 5%, said Boeing during a presentation in Rio de Janeiro, in southeastern Brazil.

Boeing predicts that single-aisle jets, 90 seats, will make up about 80% of orders. Earlier this year, Boeing estimated the world's airlines would spend US$ 2.8 trillion on new aircraft by 2026. This figure included freight planes as well as passenger jets.

Latin America is seen as an attractive growth area for the aircraft industry because of the large distance between places, poor existing transportation links and an increasing number of people able to afford airfares.

New aircraft as well as existing planes and purchases of used planes will take the region's fleet size to 2,420 by 2026, Boeing said. But large jets, such as Boeing's 747 and Airbus's A380, will make up less than 1% of new deliveries, according to the projection.

Meantime in Britain, British Airways announced it had placed an order for 36 new aircraft – the largest the airline has made since 1998. These include 12 Airbus A380 super jumbos and 24 Boeing 787s, to be delivered between 2010 and 2014, an order which has a list price of US$ 8.2 billion.

The group also has options to buy seven more A380s as well as a further 18 Dreamliners from Boeing.

The new planes would be "greener, quieter and more fuel efficient" with much lower CO² emissions, British Airways announced. The new planes will replace 34 of British Airways' existing long-haul fleet. Both types of planes will be powered by Rolls-Royce engines, the airline said.

According to Boeing, these will be jets delivered in Latin America in the next 20 years:

80% single-aisle airplanes with 90 seats and above

12% twin-aisle airplanes with 200-400 seats

8% regional jets with less than 90 seats

1% or less will be 747-size or larger airplanes, able to carry more than 400 passengers

Worldwide, Boeing forecasts a US$ 2.8 trillion market in the two decades ahead for new commercial airplanes over the next 20 years. That would mean about 28,600 new commercial airplanes (passenger and freighter), doubling the world fleet by 2026.

Bzz/Mercopress

They call the Brazilian action a dangerous precedent that will not contribute to avoid other accidents in the future. Dan Hubbard, a spokesman for the National Business Aviation Association told reporters: "We will keep our opposition to any criminal charge in this case and we regret the Justice’s decision."

On Friday, December 8, Lepore and Paladino, after a 6-hour interrogatory, in São Paulo’s Federal Police headquarters, in which they remained silent, were charged with "culpably exposing to danger a vessel or aircraft," a crime contemplated in article 261 of Brazil’s Penal Code.

The leaders of several aviation organizations tried to avoid till the last minute that the arraignment occurred. They sent a joint letter to the Brazilian justice commending the Court decision to release the Americans and "renewing a call that criminal inquiries not be made a part of investigations into any party involved in the accident."

The pilots had their passports confiscated and were held in virtual house arrest in a Rio hotel since the Legacy executive jet they were piloting collided with a Boeing 737 killing all 154 people aboard on September 29.

"Since September 29, the international community has been calling for a through investigation into this tragic accident," the letter reads and continues:

"In order to fully understand the causes behind any accident, investigators must carefully examine all evidence, including the information that is collected from interviews with those operators most directly involved. Collection of crucial data must be free from any interference by the penal system, as fear of prosecution and/or imprisonment will only deter witnesses who may be willing to assist in the investigation.

"… A criminal inquiry has no place in the investigation of any party’s role in this accident. We are pleased that your criminal authority is working to release the pilots involved in the accident, and we implore you to also set aside any criminal component in your investigation of the involvement of air traffic controllers or other parties in the events of September 29."

The letter concluded saying: "We understand the need for a grieving public to want to see justice served, and we do not seek to put our colleagues above the law. However, criminal investigations into aviation accidents like the one on September 29 are at odds with efforts to discover root causes of accidents and avoid future mistakes."

The letter was signed by the leaders of the Flight Safety Foundation, the National Business Aviation Association, the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations.

Lawyers

"The decision to accuse Joe and Jan of criminal wrongdoing is irresponsible in the face of overwhelming evidence that exonerates them," said Robert Torricella, a Miami-based lawyer for ExcelAire, the employer of the two American pilots.
"The Brazilian Federal Police is telling the world that pilots who fly in Brazil can be accused of crimes for doing nothing more than complying with applicable aviation regulations and following air traffic control directives. This is an alarming precedent for the international aviation community."

"We had hoped that the police investigation would be conducted with integrity and transparency, and that they would have listened to the pilots’ testimony before making baseless accusations," said José Carlos Dias, Brazilian counsel for the pilots.

"We are disappointed that the police investigator could not rise above the politics of the matter and let the facts determine its actions."

ExcelAire Press Release:

The ExcelAire family welcomes home its pilots, Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, at their arrival by private jet at Long Island-MacArthur airport today. The pilots were detained in Brazil following the September 29, 2006 mid-air collision between a Gol Airlines Boeing 737 and an Embraer Legacy 600 jet.

"We are thrilled to have Joe and Jan back home after a long and difficult detainment in Brazil, and this homecoming is a very special day for all of us at ExcelAire," said Bob Sherry, ExcelAire’s President and CEO. "We have been working tirelessly since the accident to bring them home, and are glad that Joe and Jan can be home with their families for the holidays, where they belong."

"We would like to thank all those people here in the U.S., Brazil and around the world that have helped so much and provided so much support to Joe and Jan during this trying time," said Mr. Sherry.

"We’d also like to thank the aviation industry associations, politicians and labor unions that have been so dedicated to this cause, and to advocating for the fair treatment of the accident investigations in Brazil."

He added, "We continue to extend our sympathies and prayers to the families and friends that lost loved ones in this tragic accident."

Brazilian Defense Minister Waldir Pires is an honest, courageous politician, who owns an undefiled biography. This doesn’t let him off from the ascertainment that he conducted the probe on the causes that led to the collision between the Gol’s Boeing and the Legacy executive jet in, at least, a flippant way.

But we need to underline that he didn’t do this for his own benefit. His intention was to make the government look good. Or the ruling party. If these facts that are now starting to come to light had been revealed between the first and the second electoral rounds, the government would be severely scorched by the election.

Waldir Pires politicized the tragedy from the very beginning. And now he is paying for that. The pilots of the Legacy were Americans, ergo they were preliminarily guilty –  they were in the wrong altitude, they turned off the transponder,  they didn’t obey the rules.

Joe Sharkey, the New York Times’s journalist who was flying in the Legacy, wrote right in the first days that there were "blind spots" in the Amazon’s air space. Minister Waldir Pires mercilessly attacked him.

When informations surfaced on the emotional shock felt by the controllers who were in Brasília’s Tower when the tragedy happened, the minister denied them. With lies. When the controllers’ category decided to act and embarked in a work-to-rule campaign to call the society’s attention, the minister made light of it and declared that there were no flight delays, that everything was normal at the Brazilian airports. He lied again.

In the Senate, Minister Pires did an about face and admitted everything he had previously challenged. On Monday, December 4, after the Fantástico TV show’s  charges about the control equipment’s condition, the minister pulled a fast one, tricked and ended up declaring that he would order an investigation of the matter. Waldir Pires told more fibs in the last 60 days than Baron Munchausen in his entire life.

Tail Between the Legs

And most of  the media repeated the shameful performance it had in the Escola Base scandal (a notorious case in which the directors of a school were wrongly accused of sex abuse). It published official charges without investigating, it believed in frivolous rumors, it abdicated from its duty of watching over the government, it forgot its duty of searching for truth and helping justice.

We kept our eyes on the ball: we called attention for the similarity between this case and the Escola Base in our radio program on October 5, 2006. [The audio of the program can be heard here: http://observatorio.ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/blogs/audio/observatorionoradio5102006.mp3 and you can read a transcript here: http://observatorio.ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/artigos.asp?cod=401IMQ005].

Among those in  the big press, Folha de S. Paulo was the only discordant voice and in the big newspaper, the largest in Brazil, columnist Eliane Cantanhêde stood out. She was the one who started in her political column the dismantling of the pack of tall tales and then went on to write ravaging stories. Even so, the rest of the newspapers kept their impassive and sleepy demeanor. It had nothing to do with them.

Nine weeks after the air catastrophe, the magazine Época showed what weekly magazines are for –  completing the dailies job, investigating in depth. The interview with two Brasilia’s tower controllers although kept in total anonymity, knocked down the sand castle invented by the government.

If it weren’t for the Jornal Nacional of Saturday, December 2, and the Fantástico show the following day we might say that Globo Network kept its tail between its legs all along. It got scared by the antimedia guerrilla started by the government and carried on by government-approved media critics. And it reproduced without complaining, along 60 days, the Defense minister’s scatterbrained statements.

Fateful Day

These revelations on the disaster’s true causes were useful to unmask the media’s extra sharp neocritics, bloggers, bloggists or mere lynchers. Thrilled with the task of proving that the big media paid more attention to the Vedoin Dossier’s piles of money pictures than to the tragedy, they ended up forgetting the tragedy itself. 

They weren’t touched by the 154 deaths,  they weren’t touched by the families’ pain,  they didn’t get angry at the authorities neglect or at their lies to hide their carelessness. These people take seriously their mission to show that the powerful federal government is a defenseless victim of the press.

The September 29 tragedy-scandal was also useful to dismantle a simplification that so much pleases totalitarians: the Brazilian media, although dangerously concentrated,  is not homogeneous, it follows diverse ways and vocations.

Folha’s journalistic instinct is not the same as the one from O Estado de S. Paulo. The same can be said for Época, Veja, Isto É and Carta Capital. Media is not an entity, it is the designation for a collective. The Globo network took a long time to wake up, but the other networks, Band, Record and SBT are still sleeping.

We also have a fateful day in September: the American one is 9/11, our is 9/29. It is  still going to haunt many people.

Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR – Laboratório de Estudos Avançados em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of the Observatório da Imprensa. You can reach him by email at obsimp@ig.com.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.

The transcription of the dialogues in English have been translated into Portuguese and a team of experts is expected to start today the analysis of the material.

They will be looking for hints that Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino acted in an irresponsible or criminal way that ended up causing Brazil’s worst air accident ever with 154 dead.

Anonymous testimonies published by the Brazilian media have painted a picture of failing equipment in the control center and less than professional behavior by some air controllers.

All this information, however, hasn’t changed the fact that the Brazilian authorities consider the American pilots their main suspect. The analysis of the conversations may mean the difference between declaring Lepore and Paladino innocent or guilty of gross negligence or even criminal malice.

Federal police chief Renato Sayão, who is in charge of the investigation, had indicated last week that the interview with the pilots would be just a pro-forma, bureaucratic act and that the Americans would be free to leave soon after their testimony.

He has changed considerably his tone, however. "If it can be proved that the pilots deliberately engaged in dangerous behavior, like turning off the transponder, disobeying control tower orders or changing the flight altitude on their own initiative, they will not escape indictment for felonious homicide."

If they are found innocent or if there is an indictment for involuntary manslaughter the American pilots, whose passports have been confiscated since the beginning of October, will be able to leave immediately to the US.

In case they are indicted for felonious homicide, however, the Brazilian Justice may order their temporary arrest and they will be in jail while the inquiry’s fact finding goes on.

"This is a very serious crime," says Sayão, "carrying from 8 to 24 years of jail time."

People close to the investigation say that after close to two months of probing, the Brazilian Federal Police seem inclined to indict the two American pilots.

According to Sayão, the transcript shows a  dialogue between the two pilots, right after the collision with the Boeing 737, which is very "revealing." But he refused to tell what he heard.

Both men, who work for the Air Force as most flight controllers in Brazil, agreed to give their version of what occurred in the control tower after the Boeing 737 disappeared from the radar with the condition that they might remain anonymous.

One of them was responsible for monitoring the jet piloted by two Americans while the plane was in the Brazilian capital Brasí­lia’s air space. í‰poca magazine calls him controller A. The other man, controller B, was working in the same room and he also witnessed his colleagues’ drama, in the afternoon of September 29.

Controller A expressly mentions a blind zone in the Amazon where the Boeing coming from Manaus to Brasí­lia and exactly on the same path as the Legacy could not be seen:

"… The Gol flight had left Manaus’ area at 3:35 pm and should enter Brasí­lia’s area at 3:50 pm, that is, 15 minutes later. Just time enough to cross the blind zone. It was already 5:20 pm and nothing, the aircraft still wasn’t on the radar. Then I asked the controller who was on the monitor: what happened? He said: ‘The plane hasn’t showed up and we are in contact with Manaus’.

"Before this fact everything was normal. After the aircraft’s disappearance, every one was feeling down. I saw one of the team members shaking the head, almost crying. Other supervisors asked to leave their own monitor to try to help the two supervisors. That’s when all other work regions started to concentrate on the accident zone.

"Lots of officers appeared and then we noticed that the worst had occurred. The air became tense. There were people crying and asking to leave. The supervisor asked the team who was going to take our place, at 9:30 pm to arrive earlier. The supervisors were asking people to calm down, but nobody was able to work."

Says Controller B: "One of the women controllers for the Rio de Janeiro region started to cry. Then the whole center felt touched. We needed a psychologist at that time, but no one showed up. The officers who were present didn’t know what was happening. I don’t know, maybe they didn’t want to believe.  They didn’t know how to deal with the situation. There was even an argument between controllers and officers. Nobody knew what to say."

According to Controller A, people on Cindacta 1, Brasí­lia’s control center, were sure that the Boeing and the Legacy were in different altitudes:

"The Legacy’s flight was normal. We only suspected something was wrong when the Gol’s plane disappeared. When the Legacy landed in Cachimbo (Cachimbo Air Base in the state of Pará) it informed that it was forced into an emergency landing because it had hit something. Then the controller said: ‘How come, if he was at 360 (36,000 feet)? There no way they could crash.’

"In our chart, the Legacy was at 360. In the radar presentation, it was at 360. Then people say that we and the supervisor didn’t do a thing and that the Legacy had transponder’s trouble. You know why we didn’t do a thing? Because we visualized the Legacy at 360 and not 370 (37,000 feet). As the plane had trouble in the transponder, we couldn’t get the data from the jet, but only from our system."

Controller B: "Our intention when contacting the Legacy was to warn that the transponder was down, and finish our task because the plane was going to enter an area not covered by radar and give them the next sector’s frequencies. That’s all we wanted to tell: ‘Talk to Manaus, and your equipment has trouble’. Nothing else."

The software should be blamed, says Controller B: "We get a record showing the proposed and the authorized flight level. It was this that induced the controller into error. The record showed the flight level they were at, 370. And the flight level after  Brasí­lia, 360. When the plane got to Brasí­lia, the level that was requested showed up as authorized. This level was sent automatically to us.

"This is something converted automatically by the software. And we had called attention to this problem a long time ago. Then the software threw in our screen the requested flight level as if it were the authorized one. When this happened, what we saw was: Legacy 360, and not 370. As the secondary radar was not picking up the transponder information, the primary radar, which oscillates a lot, showed the jet at 360. I even remember that one of the controllers asked: ‘What is the Legacy’s level?’. And the other said: ‘360’. "

If they knew something was wrong it would have been easy to change the Boeing’s route, said Controller A. All they had to do was to call Manaus and ask them to tell the Boeing to change its course. "People ask, why haven’t you done this or that? Because for us everything was normal. If we put on paper all the similar situations we have faced we could write a book." And Controller B adds: "I have been in about 10 situations like this in my 13 years of experience."

They also deny the Air Force information that there was no communication problem that day. Says Controller B: "This rainy season is a chaos. If you go to Brasí­lia’s control center now, you will see a madhouse. Cuiabá’s sector has three coverage frequencies. All of them have shortcomings. Communication is not clear. This is very dangerous. If the frequency is lacking, it doesn’t work. I cannot give instructions with echo,  I cannot talk and get a truncated answer. The instruction has to be clear."

The controllers say that antennas in forest areas don’t work due to interference. The solution for them would be to do everything using satellite. As proof of the bad frequency in the area they mention a conversation of a TAM pilot the day after the accident.

Controller A reproduces the communication: "Brasí­lia, for half an hour I have been trying to talk to you in all the frequencies, but I can’t make contact." This is there, recorded. But nobody is going to show this. They might even have erased it. Who is going to prove that it was there. The TAM pilots could. But they don’t want to talk, because even being civilians, they might be penalized by the Air Force."

Controller B says that some equipment is modern, but everything is badly cared for: "Technicians say that often the equipment works with improvised patches. When there is a problem, a technician patches a wire, some palliative thing that can cause problem any minute.

"Cindacta 1 is a shell. Whoever sees our center thinks that everything is modern, but we need investment in the main system: antennas and radars, which send information to the base. In the United States the monitors are old, but the frequencies and the antennas rarely fail."