Some thoughts on the aircrash

There are no words to describe the feeling of grief, sadness and shock that surrounds the recent airplane disaster of the last weekend. Maybe because it happened close to home, I really feel the grief, sadness and shock. I also have been following closely the news on the search and rescue mission and the developments on the investigations regarding the circumstances of the accident.
The passengers of the small jet involved in the collision were Americans, flying back to the U.S. after purchasing the jet here in Brazil. Joe Sharkey was one of the passengers, and is a reporter - he published this article on yesterday's NY Times: Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living

I read the article and was very moved by it. To me it was no more than an honest and sad account on a scary, near-death experience, which became even more exasperating afterwards when the jet passengers learned that the passengers of the Boeing had a different fate. I was surprised to read on a local newspaper today that many Brazilians posted on the NYT blog criticizing Sharkey's article. These posts from Brazilian readers mostly criticize that Sharkey referred to the pilots of the jet as heroes. "You guys saved our lives", he mentions quoting one of the passengers.

The most recent investigations indicate that the jet was flying at the wrong altitude. This and some other details suggest that there was a mistake from the part of the jet pilots. In spite of these news, I want to say that I disagree with the people that criticized Sharkey's article. Needless to say, the author didn't know about this when he wrote the article. And even if it turns out that the pilots' recklessness caused the accident, the feeling of the passengers, described by Sharkey in the article would still be genuine. I don't think he was in any way disrespectful to the families of the ones that died in the crash, as someone suggested in the NYT blog.

All of this made me wonder about how we all are bound to make mistakes. But when I make a mistake at work, sure a lot of money can be wasted, but no one dies (well, maybe some plants or bacteria). The responsibility in having such a kind of job must be overwhelming. It certainly makes you become extra-super-mega careful - you're not allowed to 'slack' at work, like everyone one of us certainly does every once in a while. So here's my question: does the fact that you are as careful as possible make you mistake-free? Can all the training, experience and responsibility create a human being invulnerable to error? I'm afraid I don't believe in that possibility... so I think that, rather than starting a witch hunt, let's wait to find out what really happened.

Having said that...

Another article on today's news shows indication that the American pilots of the Legacy jet might have actually screwed up badly. There are a lot of questions unanswered, for example: why was the jet flying with the transponder turned off (radar equipment that allows the plane to be seen and is integrated with the anti-collision system). Why did the jet not reply to the air traffic controllers that were trying to reach them before the crash? Why were they flying 1,000 feet above the flight plan altitude?

There is a suspicion that the pilots turned off the radar equipment temporarily to perform unauthorized maneuvers to save time and/or gas. The investigation now will involve the Federal Police and there is a possibility that the jet pilots will face criminal charges, if the suspicions are confirmed.

It is worth mentioning that the U.S. news is NOT reporting on any of these new findings. I am curious to see how the American and international media will handle the situation in case the pilots face criminal charges in Brazil.

Last but not least, the search teams are still working on finding the remains of the 155 people that died on the crash. The remains are scattered around a radius of over a mile (it seems very likely that the plane collapsed while still in the air. The latest hypothesis is that the jet wing cut the belly of the Boeing like a knife, so probably everything that was inside was sucked out). It is a truly horrifying thought (and I feel uncomfortable writing about it, but I think that people should know, since it is not reaching the news. I hope no one thinks that my blog is disrespectful, like Sharkey's article).