LAPA Flight 3142 - Criminal Proceedings - The Trial Continues

The Trial Continues

Roughly eight months later, on 15 July 2002, the second session of the Federal Court of Appeals confirmed the accusations of Deutsch, Boyd, and Chionetti, as well as revoking the accusation against Nora Arzeno. It also revoked the dismissal of Alfredo De Víctor and Valerio Diehl, the predecessors of Chionetti in operations management at LAPA, as well as José María Borsani, head of the Boeing 737 division of LAPA. At the same time, it recognized the lack of merit of flight instructors Vicente Sánchez, Alberto Baigorria, José Héctor García, and Juan Carlos Ossa.

Among the military officials, the Federal Court decided to revoke the accusations levelled initially against Enrique Dutra, Damián Peterson, and Diego Lentino.

La Nación made the following comment about the Court's resolution:

The central point of the resolution of Congressmen Horacio Cattani, Martín Irurzun, and Eduardo Luraschi is the analysis of Weigel's professional background. Beginning with this evaluation, they sustained, "one can affirm the existence of negligent actions of those persons (the accused) who, in one way or another, allowed the pilot (Weigel) to be in command of an airliner". The judges understood that, taking it as a given that one of the basic principles of aeronautical activity is safety, "one ought not pass over nor minimize the errors committed by the crew during initial exams or follow-ups (skill re-certification exams), whether in flight or in a simulator, which provide observations like those that appeared in the dossier of the deceased pilot (Weigel)." Thus, they enumerated a long series of errors and lack of attentiveness committed by the pilot during his exams. According to the material contained in the file that was incorporated into the judicial review, it was noted as early as April 1994 that Weigel "appeared slow" and that "he should improve his command of lists and procedures...He passed his pilot exam with the minimum score" and was subsequently certified by his instructors. In that same year, his file claimed that Weigel needed to improve his in-cockpit coordination and his use of the checklists. "One evaluation shows that he was uninformed about his appropriate role; as a consequence of this, he does not lead well and there is a lack of security and coordination in the cockpit," according to his file.

On 17 October, federal officials requested a renewed accusation against Dutra, Petersen, Lentino, and Arzeno, whose charges the Federal Court had revoked.

The following day, Clarín revealed that federal officials "in a 40-page letter, presented to federal Judge Sergio Torres, stated that at the time of the LAPA accident, they did not have a revised and approved Operations Manual provided by the Command of Aerial Regions" and that "this document was required and should have regulated the organizational and administrative structure of the airline, the minimum equipment that a plane should have, and even the procedures to be followed in the case of an accident."

At the same time, La Nación claimed that "Arzeno was responsible for a little-known fact: Weigel, while he should have not been permitted to fly after his previous actions, also should not have been in command of an airplane on the day of the tragedy because his license was expired."

A little over a year later, on 1 December 2003, the second session of the Federal Court confirmed the accusations against Dutra, Peterson, and Lentino, accusing them of the crimes of "abuse of authority and failure to fulfill the responsibilities of public office." Among the reasons cited by the judges were the lack of controls and the fact that "the evaluations taken of the crew were totally insufficient to present a clear profile of the subjects."

Additionally, it revoked the dismissal of Arzeno and charged him with negligence. The judges, according to the information taken from La Nación, said that "human behavior does not occur in a vacuum, but is rather a reflection of the corporate and regulatory environment in which it takes place. For the Congressmen, there was a "clear relationship" between the courses that Pilot Weigel had not completed, and "the violations that occurred in the cockpit" on that fateful day, a fact that was not caught by the managers who controlled the process.

On 10 September 2004, the Federal official Carlos Rívolo required the accused to stand trial in public jury trial proceedings. The request, roughly 600 pages in length, called for a judgment on Gustavo Deutsch, Ronaldo Boyd, Fabián Chionetti, Nora Arzeno, Valerio Diehl, and Gabriel Borsani for estrago culposo (catastrophic criminal negligence). In a similar vein, it requested the judgement of Enrique Dutra, Damián Peterson, and Diego Lentino, asking that they be charged for "failure to fulfill the duties of public office."

Concerning this request, the daily Infobae said that "among other considerations, Rívolo emphasized that the pilot of the destroyed plane, Gustavo Weigel, killed in the accident, had a "regulationally expired" pilot's license and acknowledged that the aviator, before take-off, "had not checked that the doors were closed" and "said that he always forgot to close the doors."

On 9 June 2005, the Federal Court of Appeals rejected the nullification motions that several of the accused had proposed, and it ordered them to jury trial. Infobae commented:

The defense, led by Jorge Sandro, dismissed the fiscal accusation as "incongruent" and declared that the accused had not been given "a clear, precise, and detailed description" of the crimes of which they were accused and therefore were denied "the guarantees of due process and right to defense." He added that Deutsch and Boyd "did not have the authority of selection, instruction, and control of the pilots and crew members" and Chionetti "adduced that he had gained the relevant authority mere months before the incident." But Judges Horacio Cattani and Eduardo Luraschi ratified today the nullification of those appeals. "Such questions, in a way, pertain to the nullifying declaration and represent a mere complaint of the defense against the treatment given to the group," they said in a statement. The Court maintained that from a "simple reading" of the fiscal accusation there emerged a clear description of how the events occurred and the accusations against the directors, in relation "to the errors committed by the pilot and copilot of the destroyed flight as a reflection of the 'recklessness' that incurred disregard of the principle of flight security." "No doubt remains that, now that this phase of the investigation has come, it is an opportune moment to pose questions during the discussions of the jury trial phase," the statement underscored.

On 5 July 2005, Judge Torres ruled the process complete and elevated all of the accused to jury trial, consequently forming a tribunal to try them. Nine persons ended up being accused: six LAPA officials and three members of the Argentinian Air Force (FAA). Charged with estrago culposo were Gustavo Deutsch (ex-president of LAPA), Ronaldo Boyd (Director General of LAPA), Fabián Chionetti, and Valerio Diehl (Operations Managers of LAPA), Gabriel Borsani (head of the B-737 Line at LAPA) and Nora Arzeno (Human Resources Manager of LAPA). For dereliction of duty in public office, the charged were Enrique Dutra (ex-Commander of Aerial Regions of the FAA), Damián Peterson (ex-Director of Aeronautical Habilitaciones), and Diego Lentino (ex-Director of the national Institute of Aeronautical and Aerospace Medicine).

Infobae described the judicial resolution in the following terms:

In the resolution, the judge reiterated that the determining factors allowing the accident to occur were "the lack of effective control and subsequently taking measures by the responsible persons of the firm LAPA S.A. at the decision-making level, with respect to the aspects relevant to flight security." In this way he placed responsibility on the airline directors for having completed "in a negligent manner" the responsibilities of their posts, including contracting the pilot Gustavo Weigel, allowing the development of his career path at the business. The judge highlighted "the constant and permanent contact and direct participation that Deutsch and Boyd had in the politics of advancement in the business" and he reproached them for "the lack of effective control that might have made it possible for the pilots to overcome the errors committed." The accused face million-dollar asset seizures and charges that have accrued to them from the commercial court that conducted the public examination of the airline. As for the members of the Air Force, they will be tried for neglecting to observe the law pertaining to content control of the Operations Manual of the airline industry and the norms for training airplane pilots. Accordingly, the judge reiterated that Lentino was accused of not having completed his principal duty adequately, namely running control checks on the psychophysiological fitness of pilots. The crime of which the ex-officials stand accused carries a penalty of up to two years of prison, and special incarceration can double the time when the offense is committed while in public office. The final judgement of the case was delayed by motions filed by the defense of several accused in order to slow the jury trial process, all of which were finally rejected weeks later by the Federal Court in Buenos Aires.