The sad saga of last Sept. 29's midair collision between a Gol Airlines Boeing 737-800 and a brand-new Embraer Legacy 600 operated by U.S.-based ExcelAire over the Amazon jungle continued to develop this week, with calls from U.S. and international observers for South American countries to clean up their ATC acts. At least one major South American newspaper took to task Brazil and Argentina's ATC systems, noting, "Increased air traffic at major airports in both countries has not resulted in corresponding upgrades of infrastructure or additional staffing, according to organizations representing thousands of pilots and air traffic controllers worldwide." That same source quoted Jorge Nunes Oliveira, president of the Association of Air Traffic Controllers of Rio de Janeiro, saying, "We are still working with some obsolete equipment, and we don't have the number of professionals we need. We have four control centers around Brazil that are responsible for the whole country. They should launch a deep study of that and consider sub-dividing those." Oliveira added, "I always used to say that, despite everything, Brazil's air traffic was safe. But I don't think that anymore." Also, a full version of the Embraer's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript found its way to the media, adding more detail to the excerpts Brazil made public last year.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/brazil-atc-takes-a-beating-full-midair-cvr-transcript-released