Brazilian prosecutor seeks charges for US Legacy jet pilots

A prosecutor on Friday sought formal charges against two US pilots and four Brazilian air traffic controllers involved in the South American country's worst-ever air disaster, which left 154 people dead.

Prosecutor Thiago Lemos de Andrade asked a federal judge to issue indictments against US pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino for involuntary manslaughter and exposing an aircraft to danger, crimes punishable by one to three years in prison, press officer Leonita Violato said.

collision

Lepore, 42, and Paladino, 34, were flying an Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet on Sept. 29, last year when it collided with a Boeing 737 operated by Gol Linhas Aereas Intelligentes SA, sending the larger plane crashing into the rain forest and killing everyone onboard.

The Legacy, owned by Ronkonkoma, New York-based ExcelAire and on its inaugural voyage to the US, landed safely.

Lepore and Paladino were detained in Brazil for two months and allowed to leave only after promising to return for any court action. But a local lawyer for the pilots said it was unclear whether they would have to go back.

"We have to wait for the judge's ruling, but the pilots have the right to defend themselves in the United States," Theo Dias said. Asked whether they would return if convicted, he said: "That is a hypothesis I prefer not to entertain."

judge's decision

Violato said the judge's decision about whether to indict the pilots could come at any time. In Brazil, there are no grand juries and judges decide whether to proceed with prosecutions.

Brazilian authorities have accused the pilots of playing a role in the crash, saying they exercised a "lack of caution."

Joel Weiss, an American lawyer representing the pilots, said they are innocent.

"The accident of Sept. 29 was a terrible tragedy, and today the prosecutor's charges against the pilots compounds that tragedy," Weiss said in a telephone interview from New York.

Brazilian authorities have conceded in recent weeks that the air traffic controllers on duty at the time of the crash share some blame. But they maintain that the pilots should have noticed that the Legacy's transponder was not transmitting a signal with its location for 55 minutes before the collision.

Weiss said investigations have not shown there was any indication in the cockpit to let the pilots know the transponder was off and air traffic controllers should have known that the planes were on a collision path.