Business jet at wrong altitude in Brazil crash

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A business jet piloted by two United States citizens was flying at the wrong altitude when it crossed paths with a commercial airliner that crashed last week in the Amazon, killing all 155 people on board, Brazil's defence minister said today.

The planes were both flying at 37,000 feet when the smaller plane and the bigger plane apparently scraped.

The business jet, a Legacy 600, was flying north towards Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state. Meanwhile, a plane flown by low-cost Brazilian carrier Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes was heading south from Manaus to the nation's capital of Brasilia.

"Flights from here (Brasilia) to Manaus should be at even-numbered altitudes, like 36 or 38 thousand feet," Defence Minister Waldir Pires said in a telephone interview. "And those from Manaus fly at odd-numbered altitudes."

The business jet was new and had been purchased by ExcelAire Service, a charter company based in Ronkonkoma, New York, from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer.

ExcelAire spokeswoman Lisa Hendrickson declined to comment today.

The pilots were flying the Legacy to the United States when its path and the Gol's intersected.

The business jet was able to land safely at a military base in the jungle. None of the seven people on board were hurt.

Authorities also believe the two pilots of Legacy may have shut off the plane's transponder, a decision that would have rendered its anti-collision system useless.

Passports of the two American pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, were confiscated for the duration of the investigation, said Judge Tiago de Abril in Mato Grosso state, where the plane crashed.

"We know that the transponder was turned off," said Jose Carlos Pereira, the head of Brazil's airports authority, the Estado De Sao Paulo newspaper reported today.

The transponder is a key component of the anti-collision system that each plane was equipped with. The planes would not have detected each other if one of the two transponders were off, authorities said. The transponder also sends signals to air traffic controllers with details such as altitude and speed.

"A pilot only turns it off when he doesn't want to be identified. The Legacy could have turned it off to try some air tricks far from the eyes of the air traffic controllers," Pereira said. "But it also could have been a case of mechanical failure."

Pereira told the newspaper Gol's Boeing 737-800 was probably being flown on automatic pilot and adhering to its set altitude.

At the crash site in a dense, remote area in the rainforest, salvage crews were still recovering remains today.

- REUTERS