September 29: On This Day in World History … briefly
On 1 June 2007, Murilo Mendes, a Brazilian federal judge in the small city of Sinop, Mato Grosso, near the crash site of the Boeing, indicted the two Embraer pilots and four Brasília-based air traffic controllers for 'exposing an aircraft to danger.'
2006: Two planes crash in mid-air in Brazil, killing 154
Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 was a Boeing 737-8EH on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Manaus, Brazil, to Rio de Janeiro. On the afternoon of September 29, 2006, it collided in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet over the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.
The Boeing 737 broke up in mid-air and crashed into an area of dense jungle, killing all 154 passengers and crew on board. Despite sustaining serious damage to its left wing and tail, the Embraer Legacy jet landed safely with its seven occupants uninjured.
The accident was investigated by the Brazilian Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Centre (Centro de Investigação e Prevenção de Acidentes Aeronáuticos (CENIPA)) and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and a final report was issued in 2008.
CENIPA concluded that the accident was caused by air traffic control (ATC) errors combined with mistakes made by the American pilots on the Legacy, while the NTSB determined that both flight crews acted properly and were placed on a collision course by ATC, deeming the Legacy pilots’ disabling of their TCAS system to be only a contributing factor rather than a direct cause.
The accident, which triggered a crisis in Brazilian civil aviation, was the deadliest in Brazil’s aviation history at the time. It remains the second worst plane crash in Brazil, after TAM Airlines Flight 3054 in 2007.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Like the South Coast Herald’s Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram
To receive our FREE email newsletter, click HERE
