plane's instruments were studied, it was clear the plane had been steady as a rock at 37,000 feet. >> joe sharkies held in brazil for two days. the pilots, joe la pore and jan palladino are held for more than two months. when they're finally allowed to leave the country on december 9th, 2006, they receive a warm welcome back at their company headquarters in long island, new york. but the pilots' problems are far from over. nine months after the accident, the brazilian government indicts the american pilots, as well as four of its own air traffic controllers, for exposing an aircraft to danger. the international aviation community has come out strongly against criminalizing accidents. >> we have to know what they were thinking, what decisions they were making, why they acted the way they did. and if there's a fear of going to jail and that punitive action against them, then that's going to inhibit the information that we as investigators get. >> the criminalization of aircraft accident investigations is an impediment to safety. >> in may 2011, a federal judge when you have situations where there's