Radar outage in Brazil adds to aviation woes

As if Brazil did not have enough air traffic problems, a radar failure over the Amazon forced the country’s aviation authorities to turn back or ground a string of international flights Saturday, deepening a national aviation crisis just hours after the president of the country unveiled safety measures prompted by the country’s deadliest air disaster. Further shaking Brazilians’ confidence, authorities announced that they had mistaken a piece of the fuselage from Tuesday’s accident for the flight recorder and sent it to a laboratory for analysis.

CNN reports that the radar outage from 11:15 p.m. Friday to 2:30 a.m. Saturday, caused by an electrical problem, forced numerous planes heading to Brazil from the United States to return to their points of origin and make unscheduled landings at airports from Puerto Rico to Chile. Eight of the seventeen planes flying in the coverage area of the radar system were rerouted, and some airlines canceled flights bound for Brazil. Brazil has had chronic problems with delays and cancellations on domestic flights during the past ten months, but the radar outage was the first time that international flights have been severely affected.

The radar mishap followed a nationally televised speech by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who tried to calm the nation Friday night by announcing new safety measures and saying authorities will build a new airport in Sao Paulo, where an Airbus A320 operated by Tam Airlines crashed, killing 191 people.

MORE: A group of air traffic controllers, hired en bloc in the early 1980s after 11,000 controllers were fired for striking, now is retiring rather than continuing under a new pay scale and work rules imposed by Federal Aviation Administrator Marion Blakey. Their departure is leaving FAA short on capability and expertise just as air traffic is increasing exponentially and a new generation of controllers desperately needs seasoned hands to guide them, a new Government Executive analysis shows.