Apocalyptic Chaos in the Skies Update: No Sabotage, Says Infraero Brigadier

Bald eagle: Gen. Pereira assumes command

Infraero nega sabotagem contra o sistema aéreo | Terra | Atrasos em vôos: The Terra news portal — which, unlike many media outlets, is publishing its coverage under the heading of “Flight Delays” rather than “Air Travel Apocalypse!” or “Chaos in the Airports!” — reports that the brigadier general who heads Infraero, Brazil’s state-owned, military controlled domestic air travel operator, is denying that the system was sabotaged.

About 16% of flights were delayed more than an hour on Tuesday, I read.

I am still waiting to read a summary of comparative flight delays over time. Surely some junior reporter could put that together in an hour or two?

The best coverage I have read on this so far?

The reporting package put together by the Estado de S. Paulo for its print edition, which I bought at the airport (Cumbicas) and read on my (on-time) flight from São Paulo to New York yesterday. Say what you like about the Estadão, those folks know how to put together a well-designed two-page spread, with multiple entry-points, designed to give you quick takeaways and also point you to the depth of the story.

The most chaotic part of which journey into the heart of chaos, by the way, for me, was the freight-train snoring of my seatmate — a perfectly sweet little old church lady who does not deserve the uncharitable thoughts I harbored towards her the entire night.

And the pedal-tone sonority of whose sinuses was surprising for a frail little creature such as she appeared to be. I seriously thought about gently tying her jaws shut with a cord improvised from the hot face-towels they hand out with tongs.

Otherwise it was the same routine as ever for the midnight overnight 747 cattle-car experience to JFK, only this time I did it on JAL rather than American Airlines — “the hell flight,”as I like to call it.

JAL apparently changed its São Paulo-Tokyo layover from LAX to JFK and is pounding its overpriced competitor on this leg of the journey, so I got to rub elbows with a mob of rollicking Tupi-Japanese families, loaded down with tropical swag for their move back to the home island. Which was fun. The Tupi-Japanese are an interesting bunch. Fun-loving but polite.

The Estado was the only newsdesk that gave me a source on official explanations of the “systems failure” at CINDACT 1 that everyone else was reporting: The Infraero president, citing “official Air Force” sources of his own.

More on that in a bit. But first, denying that sabotage was involved in the power-cut to the systems at CINDACT 1 in Brasília, a regional air traffic control facility that is part of Brazil’s integrated air defense system.

O presidente da Infraero, brigadeiro José Carlos Pereira, negou nesta terça-feira qualquer tipo de sabotagem contra o sistema aéreo ou contra o Aeroporto Juscelino Kubitschek, em Brasília, especificamente. O aeroporto sofreu quedas de energia na segunda e terça-feira, o que causou atrasos nos vôos em todo o País.

The president of Infraero, Brig. Gen. José Carlos Pereira, denied on Tuesday the existence of any type of sabotage against the air travel system or the Kubitschek Airport in Brasília in particular. The airport suffered a loss of electrical power on Monday and Tuesday, which caused flight delays throughout Brazil.

O ministro de Minas e Energia, Silas Rondeau, fez uma visita surpresa ao aeroporto de Brasília nesta terça-feira para verificar o sistema elétrico. Segundo o presidente da Infraero, Rondeau teria ido fazer uma inspeção rotineira por orientação do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. O ministro não falou com a imprensa.

The minister of Mines and Energy, Silas Rondeau, made a surprise visit to the Brasília airport on Tuesday to check electrical systems. According to the Infraero president, Rondeau was making a routine inspection in order to report back to President Squid. The minister did not speak to the press.

The only person I have heard seriously charging sabotage so far was my wife, upon first hearing of the problem, without any other information than what I had told her from the news brief on the brownout there.

Pure conspiracy theory, mere supposition, based on the political scenario: “The PFL is blocking all votes in Congress in defense of its right to probe the ‘chaos in the skies.’ The skies have actually not been all that chaotic, really. So maybe somebody decides to create some chaos in the skies in time for the committee vote this week.”

Now, the brigadier is publicly denying my wife’s idle and, I swear to you, purely spontaneous thought.

The responsible committee of the lower house voted down the proposal to form a CPI of “the chaos in the skies” yesterday. After a great deal of histrionic screaming.

The government wants to hire and train a big crop of civilian air traffic controllers in response to the issue, I read.

It has just activated a plan to hire 60 civilians on a temporary basis for 2 years, with an option to extend two years. The Senate ratified an executive “provisional measure” — the so-called “Conversion Law,” as in demilitarization — on this last year.

Which in practice might mean recycling some of the sergeants who currently do the work into civilian-sector union jobs.

A proposal to prevent public-sector employees from striking — remember Reagan and the air-traffic controllers? — has, by purest coincidence, also appeared on the legislative agenda.

No Korean-Taiwanese riots on the floor this time around, although Magalhães of the PFL — Toninho Malvadezas, or “Little Tony Cheap-Shot” has been known to assault opponents physically in the past.

But ACM is getting on in years now.

I have said it before: It is very common to read, in the Brazilian media, about impassioned denials of charges that that same Brazilian media has never reported anyone making.

See, for example, Alagoas: Elections Justice Denies Invisible Charges, Visibly Smoldering Evidence.

The strategy — if you really try to keep up with Brazilian newsflow, the pattern is about as striking being smacked in the face with a live flounder when you are least expecting it — forms one element in what we tend to think of, informally, as part of our emerging theory of contemporary global strategic communications, as a “Latin American guilty plea.”