The location of the signals emitted by the cell phones of the four victims of the accident with the PR-HDB helicopter helped the Military Police teams in the search for the aircraft, which had been missing since January 31st. The wreckage was located this Friday morning (12) in a forested area in Paraibuna, in the interior of São Paulo. There were no survivors.
Delegate Paulo Sérgio Rios Campos Melo, director of the Department of Strategic Police Operations (Dope), of the São Paulo Civil Police, explains that investigators took the signals from the four people's devices and tried to establish a point that corresponded to the location of the aircraft.
Campos Melo explains that there was great difficulty in finding the area because cell phones did not provide an exact location. What was possible to define was the location of the antenna that captured the signal from the devices. The crashed helicopter did not have a localizer or black box.
“To our surprise [a área onde a aeronave poderia estar]it was more than 12 kilometers in a straight line”, explains the delegate.
Another problem was the fact that only one antenna captured the signals. “It was not possible to do triangulation. There weren't three antennas for us to catch the intersection. It was intelligence work.”
The director of Dope informs that, only last Thursday (11), there were favorable weather conditions for the Civil Police Pelicano helicopter to fly over this region to carry out a “technical investigation”.
On Wednesday (10), the Tamoios concessionaire sent to the authorities a video of an image captured by a camera at km 58 of the highway, in Paraibuna, which showed a low-flying aircraft that could be the PR-HDB.
“It was not easy. Because, for us to establish a limit on the range of that antenna, we would have to be flying at the same height as that helicopter, speed, the type of device on board, to measure the range”, he said.
After this investigation, the Civil Police passed the data to the Military Police, who changed the search strategy.
“This intelligence work by the Civil Police, this delimitation, helped a lot. This allowed the PM to create a different flight condition: we decided to use a lower, slower flight tactic, in quadrants, within the delimitation given by the Civil Police. This made the meeting immensely easier”, explains Colonel Ronaldo Barreto de Oliveira, head of the São Paulo Military Police Aviation Command.
Colonel Barreto stated, in a press conference, that the climate in the region, the type of terrain and the dark color of the missing equipment made the search even more difficult. “In addition to this, the information [que a polícia recebia] were divergent. PM 190 and 193 received more than 100 calls reporting location and sightings. We worked with this information. The vast majority of us went to the location indicated by the applicants”, he added.
The PR-HDB helicopter was piloted by Cassiano Tete Teodoro, 44 years old. Also on the flight were businessman Raphael Torres, 41, businesswoman Luciana Rodzewics, 46, and her daughter, Letícia, 20.
After locating the wreckage, the police try to speed up the recovery of the bodies. The release will only be made after an examination by the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) and the Scientific Police.
Source: CNN Brasil
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