Crash over the Amazon

Quite a horrific accident. My sympathies to the families of the lost.

Was reading an article by a freelancer who was aboard the legacy. Quite a frightning recollection by him.

I’m now reading the the Brazilian government has arrested the Legacy pilots over suspicions that they intentionaly turned their transponder off.

Not arrested but had their passports pulled. Not looking good for them. Here’s an update:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/10/04/brazil.crash.ap/index.html

You are correct, the TCAS system works by “talking” to the other aircraft that are transmitting. By transmitting altitude, speed and climb rate each TCAS can calculate and notify each pilot of the appropriate avoidance climb or decent rate needed. Both the TCAS systems involved also notify each other what they are telling their respective pilots to do to avoid both telling their pilots to climb or descend. By not having their transponder on the Legacy pilots would be invisible to other TCAS systems in the area leaving the pilots to rely on their eyes only.

And in the fast failing light of sunset, the GOL pilots would have stood little chance of spotting the little Legacy.

I’m now reading the the Brazilian government has arrested the Legacy pilots over suspicions that they intentionaly turned their transponder off.

Also, it appears either the FDR or CVR of the GOL 737 has been found. One hopes either can shed a quick answer to this mystery.

Can anyone comment if this is how TCAS works, does it purely rely on the Transponder signals? That strikes me as logical.

You are correct, the TCAS system works by “talking” to the other aircraft that are transmitting. By transmitting altitude, speed and climb rate each TCAS can calculate and notify each pilot of the appropriate avoidance climb or decent rate needed. Both the TCAS systems involved also notify each other what they are telling their respective pilots to do to avoid both telling their pilots to climb or descend. By not having their transponder on the Legacy pilots would be invisible to other TCAS systems in the area leaving the pilots to rely on their eyes only.

Hi Sandy

There is a good post running over on Prune about this in Rumours & news, you are correct via the TCAS, it needs transponder interrogation to work, the 738 would not have seen the Legacy & visa versa, if you want some more technical details I can post them or you can google it, if the Legacy’s transponder was indeed off then a whole can of worms will be opened, time will tell.
As for the landing gear, the FDR will reveal if the crew extended it, they may have done for a few reasons, I’ll leave the speculation as to why to others, because debating this will speculate as to the events after the crash 😉

Dean

My only guess would be that 1 or both of the aircraft didn’t have their TCAS on. I’m sure that will be the first thing that he investigators will look at and should be pretty easy to determine. From the article (this or another I read) they mentioned that it was the 737 that was taking evasive action at the time of the accident. Looking at the angle of bank necessary to only hit the winglet and edge of the elevator the 737 must have been in quite a bank. It’ll be interesting to see if it was the striking of the Legacy that brought the 737 down or possible excessive maneuvering.

I have been following this accident closely and discussing it with others.

It appears the Legacy’s transponder was off. Whether by deliberate act, malfunction or whatever. The speculation is that without its transponder, the TCAS on the Boeing will have not “seen” the Legacy.

Can anyone comment if this is how TCAS works, does it purely rely on the Transponder signals? That strikes me as logical.

The question no one seems to be able to answer just yet is what brought the 737 down so dramatically?

Its now very clear it broke up before impacting the ground. But what could cause a 200 hour brand new aircraft to break up?
Also what damage could that Legacy have done to cause the 737 to crash, yet come away with such little damage.

Or did the Pilots of the 737 panic when they was the beacon lights of the Legacy and inadvertently put the 737 into an unrecoverable maneovre?

Apparently the Cockpit section of the Boeing with its two pilots has been found, as well as the CVR and FDR.

Hopefully these will shed light on the matter.
I’m interested in seeing what position the Landing gear lever is in. If in the Down position that casts a whole new load of questions

My only guess would be that 1 or both of the aircraft didn’t have their TCAS on. I’m sure that will be the first thing that he investigators will look at and should be pretty easy to determine. From the article (this or another I read) they mentioned that it was the 737 that was taking evasive action at the time of the accident. Looking at the angle of bank necessary to only hit the winglet and edge of the elevator the 737 must have been in quite a bank. It’ll be interesting to see if it was the striking of the Legacy that brought the 737 down or possible excessive maneuvering.

WD, do you have a theory on how they hit each other to make this level and position of damage? From the article of the hack onboard seems pilots never saw other aircraft.

Here’s the picture from the article as well as 2 others that I found online.

It appears that they suffered some damage to their elevator.

Here is the report by Joe Sharkey, reporter for the New York Times and a passenger on the Legacy jet together with a photo of the jet. Makes chilling reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/business/03road.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=27b19cf639280f8b&hp=&ex=1159848000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

That was Very intresting to read.Could you post these pictures?

James

Here is the report by Joe Sharkey, reporter for the New York Times and a passenger on the Legacy jet together with a photo of the jet. Makes chilling reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/business/03road.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=27b19cf639280f8b&hp=&ex=1159848000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

I’ve studied the photo more.
The right wing, what we can see of it, has no leading edge damage. Which would seem to indicate it wasn’t travelling forwards on impact. Very strange!

EDIT: OK, another photo has surfaced showing the entire wing section.

The fuselage fore and aft of the wings has broken off. The right wing is entirely intact, save for the odd component, like the winglet. The Left wing is broken off about halfway between the engine pylon and the wingtip and as noted before is deformed in a manner indicative of it hitting something with some force.

I would wager a guess that the plane came into the tree canopy in a left wing down attitude and broke apart. The Main Landing gear is clearly deployed with the right side locked into position.

I’d say the pilots tried an emergency landing, hoping that perhaps they’ed fly into one of the many farm fields in the area. But as it was pitch black, they couldn’t see anything so were effectively blind.

Confirmed that the above photo shows the undercarriage in the extended position. Interesting. CNN are reporting that the black box from the Legacy jet confirms the mid air collision. The first two bodies were removed by helicopter from the wreckage late yesterday. Brazil has announced three days of mourning.

Just saw another photo.

I shows the Wing box section upside down. The left wing is crushed, the right wing is more intact. Both engines gone, but curiously, the main gear is extended.

Its looking like a realtively slow impact and a shallow one at that. Perhaps a failed crash landing.

Daily Mail today reported that they wernt a second jet at all and thats just hearsay.

The Daily Mail will report what they think will sell their papers.

I’ve already seen pics of the Legacy jet involved. The winglet on the left side has been ripped off and there is damage to the left tip of the horizontal stabiliser.

EDIT: Just got to see some pictures of the 738’s crash site. Not much left of it. I’d be surprised if anyone came out of that. No evidence of a post crash fire though and the absence of a line of damage trees appears to indicate a near vertical nose in attitude in impact. However, some of the fuselage parts are quite big which is not indicative of a nose dive. Most puzzling!

Most of the debris is covered by the dense tree top foliage.

Daily Mail today reported that they wernt a second jet at all and thats just hearsay.

There is a report that the Legacy pilot was making an unauthorized change of altitude and had switched his transponder off. :confused:

Rumours of drug trafficking abound!

There is a report that the Legacy pilot was making an unauthorized change of altitude and had switched his transponder off. :confused:

🙁

My deepest regards to the family members!

(I know, it is too early to speculate, but I personally presume, that one or both of the pilots misinterpret the TCAS screen.)

Soldiers on site, no sign of survivors. Another sad day. Amazing, you’d think the Amazon jungle was big enough or the airspace over it…….