The "logic" of someone deliberately turning off the transponder escapes me. Similarly ignoring the warnings that it was off seems utterly daft. If they were running drugs...well ok. But who would do so at that altitude? In contact with ATC the entire time? With those passengers-one of whom was a well know reporter?

Makes utterly no sense at all.

Looks to me like ATC screwed the pooch, the Brasilians were lucky in that there were foreigners involved to scapegoat, and thats what they tried. I applaud the Brasilian system for working, political distaste with the decision or not.

Ed