FAA rejects Brazilian request to revoke pilots' licenses

The Federal Aviation Administration has rejected a request from two Brazilian congressmen to revoke the licenses of two American pilots who survived a 2006 collision over Brazil.

The request for the sanction against the pilots for Ronkonkoma-based Excel-Aire was made April 13 in Washington by the congressmen and a lawyer representing families of the 154 people who died when a Boeing 737 jet flown by Gol airline crashed Sept. 29, 2006, in the Amazon after the collision.

The FAA wrote in an April 27 letter there was insufficient evidence to take action against Joseph Lepore of Bay Shore and Jan Paladino of Westhampton Beach.

The letter was relayed to the Brazilians by the State Department, Kerry Humphrey, a spokeswoman for the department, said Wednesday.

Dante D'Aquino, attorney for the Association of Relatives of Victims of Gol 1907, also an assistant prosecutor in the criminal trial against the pilots and air traffic controllers in Brazil over the accident, complained to the O Globo newspaper in São Paulo Wednesday that the FAA gave no explanation for its decision.

"The negative answer, cut and dried, as it was given, is an affront to Brazilians and to the victims' families," he said, adding he'll take the case to the Interamerican Court of Justice.

The pilots' attorney, Joel Weiss of Uniondale, said "the FAA has properly rejected this inappropriate, partisan assault on the pilots' licenses. The pilots did not violate any rules. This accident was caused by one and only one thing: Brazilian air traffic controllers put two competent flight crews on a collision course."

The unusual criminal case has been under way for three years with delays for appeals by both sides as charges have been added and dropped. A civil case was brought by the families in New York but the court ruled the case should be heard in Brazil; the families are appealing.

Lepore still flies for ExcelAire while Paladino works for American Airlines.