The New York Times, "Victims’ Families Criticize Secrecy of Brazil Air Crash Inquiry"

           As salvage crews searched Wednesday for the last four bodies of the 154 people killed in an apparent midair collision on Sept. 29, aviation experts, victims’ families and the Brazilian public were criticizing the investigation for what they said was a lack of transparency and questioning whether the full story of the accident would ever be known.
          Technical investigators, led by the Brazilian Air Force, have disclosed few details beyond what has become the basic thesis as others have been ruled out: that the business jet, an Embraer Legacy just picked up from its Brazilian manufacturer, clipped the wing of the Boeing in midflight over the Amazon rainforest.
         Coupled with a missing piece of crucial evidence — the part of the recorder that stored the Boeing’s cockpit sounds, which is lost in the rainforest — the lack of public information has led to rampant speculation, complaints from victims’ families and finger-pointing at the American pilots, who have had their passports confiscated and remain in Brazil for questioning.
          Adhering to guidelines established by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization, the investigation committee includes representatives from the operators of both flights and the manufacturers of the aircraft and equipment.
          It also includes representatives from the United States government, including specialists from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, because the Boeing was manufactured in the United States and the Legacy was registered there.
          But the guidelines leave the disclosure of details of the accident to the local authorities, in this case the Brazilian Air Force.
          “Because it is military, they are far more restrictive in releasing factual information than the U.S. or Europe,” said Hans-Peter Graf, a former airline pilot and crash investigator for the Swiss government who is now in Brazil as a consultant to lawyers representing victims’ families.