SAO PAULO – A Brazilian federal judge has sentenced two American pilots to community service for their role in one of Brazil's deadliest airline crashes.
The judge says the pilots were negligent by not verifying that their executive jet's anti-collision equipment and and a locator were turned on.
Pilots Joseph Lepore of Bay Shore, New York, and Jan Paladino of Westhampton Beach, New York, have insisted that the equipment was turned on.
They were sentenced late Monday to four years of unspecified community service in the U.S.
Their jet was operated by ExcelAire Service Inc. of Ronkonkoma, New York. It collided with a Gol airliner that then crashed in the Amazon in 2006, killing 154 people. The smaller jet managed to land.
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