Thursday, November 23, 2006

YES, MINISTER? (III)

This just in from down the rabbit hole, home of cracked logic and egregious contradictions that go utterly unchallenged, the land where nobody's responsible for nothing. Warning, this could make your head hurt. From today's O Globo in Brazil:

O Globo 23 November

Flight controllers say: there is a blind spot

Evandro Éboli, Brasília – The 13 flight controllers who were working in the towers of São José dos Campos (SP) and Brasília on the day of the collision between the Gol Boeing and the Legacy jet assured, in a deposition taken by the Federal Police, that there is in fact a blind spot, an area where radio communication is difficult, in the Amazon Region, where the accident happened. The information contradicts what the Air Force and the Minister of Defense, Waldir Pires, have been saying since the disaster, which happened on the 29th of September.

Lawyer Normando Augusto Cavalcanti, hired by the Brazilian Association of Flight Controllers to defend the 13 controllers, said yesterday that the existence of a blind spot is an unanimity between the professionals. Normando says they did not fail, and have no responsibility whatsoever for the accident. The lawyer pointed out two hypothesis for the cause of the collision between the airplanes: induction of error due to problem in the communication system, or error of the Legacy pilots. He says the controllers did everything they were supposed to do.

"They didn't do anything wrong at all. There was no perception of the collision. The two airplanes were within their (flight) plans".

[MY NOTE: The Legacy was indisputabily NOT within its flight plan, which would have had it at 36,000 feet beyond Brasilia. It was flying under flight controller instructions, which take precedence over a filed flight plan, at 37,000 feet, where the collision happened after the Legacy made 19 unsuccessful attempts to reach air traffic control.]

Computer may have induced error

Declaration of Air Force commander was "upsetting"

Brasília – According to lawyer Normando Cavalcanti, the controllers told the Federal Police that the induction of error may have been caused by the computer software. He said it isn't a defect, but rather an imperfection in the adjustment of the radar, which can lead to a mistake about the exact position of the aircraft. ...

The lawyer also said that the seven unsuccessful attempts of contact by the Brasília controllers with the Legacy before the collision were "more than necessary".

[MY NOTE: The 154 people who died might disagree with that].

"For them, the Legacy knew what to do, and they believed it was at 36 thousand feet, as the flight plan established. They trusted the primary radar, as established in the code. ... The lawyer said that everyone is being heard in the condition of witness, and not as suspects.

---ends

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