Prosecutors call for conviction of pilot accused of killing two people on Caparica Beach

This Thursday, the prosecutor’s office defended the conviction of the pilot instructor who is on trial in the Almada court for the death of two people during an emergency landing on Caparica beach, but the defense demanded an acquittal.

Without specifying the penalty, the prosecutor said in closing arguments that pilot Carlos Conde de Almeida, the only defendant in the case, “cannot but be found guilty”, considering that he changed the danger for two crew members. members of the aircraft – instructor and student – from landing elsewhere or darting into the water for the “safe death of others” on a beach with hundreds of people.

Carlos Conde de Almeida is accused of dangerous operation of an aircraft and two counts of negligent homicide in the deaths of an eight-year-old girl and a 56-year-old man during an emergency landing on the sand. Sao Paulo beach, Joao da Caparica, Setubal district, after an engine failure on a Cessna 152 light training aircraft, August 2, 2017.

Prosecutors say Carlos Conde de Almeida should have chosen an emergency landing site as soon as the damage occurred, but did so too late, wasting time in successive attempts to restart the plane’s engine. , which lasted much longer than usual.

As at the Justice Department, the lawyer representing the family of the eight-year-old girl who died after she was hit by a plane, Barbara Mariño Pinto, asked for a “jail sentence” for Carlos Conde de Almeida but conceded it should be commuted. “flight ban”

The instructor pilot’s lawyer, Nuno Pires de Lima, criticized the prosecutor’s investigation, which he called “ill-prepared and unfounded,” and regretted that the reasons for the plane’s engine shutdown were not investigated because the investigation could have led to charges against other people.

The verdict is scheduled to be read at 1:30 p.m. on May 14.