BRASILIA, (Reuters) – A Brazilian federal court on Monday upheld the conviction of two U.S. pilots for their role in Brazil’s second-worst airline disaster, a 2006 midair collision over the Amazon in which 154 people died.
But it changed a lower court decision that had reduced each pilot’s four-year, four-month prison sentence to community service in the United States.
The federal court said the pilots must instead serve three years and one month in the United States under an “open” system allowed by Brazil law. They do not have to go to prison but have to report regularly to authorities and stay home at night.
It was unclear how the sentences would be applied in the United States. A federal court official said compliance was up to the lower court.
Pilots Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, whose corporate jet clipped the wing of a Gol Airlines Boeing 737 that plummeted 37,000 feet (11,278 meters) into the jungle, were held for two months after the crash and allowed to return to the United States.
They were acquitted in absentia last year of all but one of six charges: failure to observe cockpit warnings that the transponder and anti-collision system were turned off for nearly an hour, which meant the Boeing pilots could not see the planes were on a collision course.