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US pilots to be retried for Brazil airline crash

Published: October 9, 2012 Comment on this article

photo - FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2006 file photo, Joseph Lepore, right, and Jan Paladino, both U.S. pilots who were detained in Brazil for more than two months following a midair collision that killed 154 people, embrace as they are greeted by friends and family upon returning to Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. The two pilots will be retried in absentia on Oct. 15, 2012 for their role in a 2006 airline crash that killed 154 people in Brazil, the federal prosecutor's office in Brazil said Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Ed Betz, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2006 file photo, Joseph Lepore, right, and Jan Paladino, both U.S. pilots who were detained in Brazil for more than two months following a midair collision that killed 154 people, embrace as they are greeted by friends and family upon returning to Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. The two pilots will be retried in absentia on Oct. 15, 2012 for their role in a 2006 airline crash that killed 154 people in Brazil, the federal prosecutor's office in Brazil said Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Ed Betz, File)

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The Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet collided with a Boeing 737 operated by Gol Lineas Aereas Intelligentes SA. The smaller plane, owned by Ronkonkoma, New York-based ExcelAire Service Inc., landed safely while the larger jet crashed into the jungle, killing all aboard.

It was Brazil's worst air disaster until a jet ran off a runway less than a year later in Sao Paulo and burst into flames, killing 199 people.

Lepore and Paladino faced charges in Brazil of negligence and endangering air traffic safety for allegedly flying at the wrong altitude and failing to turn on the aircraft's anti-collision system. The judge convicted them of impeding the safe navigation of an airplane.

Theo Dias, a Brazilian lawyer for the American pilots, has appealed last year's sentence.

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