ULMFlyer From Brazil, joined Sep 2006, 475 posts, RR: 1 Posted (4 years 5 months 2 weeks 19 hours ago) and read 2481 times:
The final report on the collision between GOL 1907 (B738) and N600XL (Legacy 600) is at last to be released by the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) next week.
Despite the pathetic preliminary report earlier released (see discussion here), it seems that FAB ended up doing a good job on the final report. According to what is being reported in the Brazilian press, it follows the NTSB in not appointing blame, but only in identifying the causal chain of events.
In regards to that, it does not seem to bring up any new and relevant facts. What we knew at the time of the preliminary report remains valid: controllers messed up hugely at different phases and the Legacy's transponder/TCAS was unintentionally turned off (or less likely failed), without her crew noticing it.
If you want to know most of the important details about what happened and before the report is released, I direct you to William Langewiesche's outstanding article in Vanity Fair. He seems to have had access to the final report and to investigators.
It is tough reading and includes the recordings from both CVRs. The last minute from the Boeing's CVR is gut-churning
Hagic From Canada, joined Jan 2006, 159 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (4 years 5 months 2 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 2436 times:
According to the Brazilian news today, the report indicates that Legacy pilots did indeed turned off the transponder during the flight, which rendered The TCAS inoperative.
ULMFlyer From Brazil, joined Sep 2006, 475 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (4 years 5 months 2 weeks 17 hours ago) and read 2406 times:
Quoting Hagic (Reply 1): According to the Brazilian news today
Maybe there will be something from the DFDR in the final report proving that the Legacy crew unknowingly put the transponder on stand by. The superb VF article only states this as the most likely possibility.
But I believe the Brazilian press is unsurprisingly being biased in not emphasizing this lack of intent on the crew's part.
Even sections of this note released by FAB today only state that:
Quote: The principal points presented in the meeting with the families, already supplied to the press, were the following:
1) No errors were found in the design or integration of the communications, transponder and TCAS (anti-collision) equipment of aircraft N600XL (the Legacy);
2) Between January 29 and 31, the two American pilots were heard, in individual interviews, at the headquarters of the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), in Washington, in the United States. The pilots heard two hours of audio recorded by the black-box (CVR) of aircraft N600XL and answered a long questionnaire elaborated by the Commission of Investigation about the accident;
3) The pilots said that they did not undertake any intentional act to interrupt the functioning of the transponder and, consequently, of the aircraft's anti-collision system, as well as not having noticed or remembered having done anything that could have caused the accidental interruption of the functioning of that equipment;
Another example of bias printed all over the Brazilian press today is that there are significant differences between FAA and ICAO IFR regs. Particularly that ICAO regs are much more stringent in regard to following flight plans, from which no deviations are allowed. And that the American pilots didn't know these ICAO regs.
Well, maybe there are some differences, but I was never taught that a flight plan takes precedence over a controller when flying in Brazil. Anyone more knowledgeable, please pitch in.
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