The manufacturer of an executive jet involved in Brazil's deadliest air disaster said Tuesday that there was no indication a device used to communicate the aircraft's position had malfunctioned. Frederico Fleury Curado, president of Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, or Embraer, told a congressional commission that a federal police report concluded "there was no equipment failure" in the transponder before the crash that killed 154 people last year.
          "We have to remove any affirmation that there was a problem with the transponder," he said at the session on Brazil's troubled air traffic control system. An Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet collided with Boeing 737 operated by Gol Lineas Aereas Intelligentes SA over the Amazon rainforest on Sept. 29. All aboard the Gol jetliner were killed, while the Legacy, owned by Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based ExcelAire Service Inc., landed safely.
          A spokeswoman for ExcelAire said the company would issue a statement later in response to Curado's testimony. Investigators say the Legacy's transponder, which alerts other planes and ground radar to the plane's position, was turned off. But they have not been able to determine whether it malfunctioned, or if it was turned off intentionally or inadvertently. Curado said it was "highly improbable" the pilots inadvertently turned off the transponder, saying: "To turn of the equipment, the pilot has to press the same button twice." A federal judge indicted the two American pilots, as well as four air controllers in connection with the accident. Prosecutors say pilots Joseph Lepore, 42, and Jan Paul Paladino, 34, both of New York, accidentally turned off the transponder.

Learn more about the Gol 1907 crash.