Presidential candidate Eduardo Campos killed in plane crash

It's incredible and shameful in my opinion that not one thing has been mentioned about that on the news here. This is the first I've heard of it, and I've had CNN on for hours, and nothing has been said.

Again, incredible and shameful.

You really have to wonder about what qualifications are necessary in order to be a journalist in this country. The anchors of all of the national television networks, the reporters on scene in Santos are all making wild speculations about the causes of this terrible crash, making statements that are not only unsubstantiated, but also absolutely ridiculous. Some have speculated that the aircraft "possibly" struck a helicopter or other small aircraft, others speculate that it may have struck a construction crane. It's amazing that nobody has yet postulated that it was blown up by a bomb or shot down by a missile, but I'm sure they'll try that on for size too. There are more clowns than in any circus!

The facts that are known and confirmed at the moment are that the weather conditions were extremely bad, heavy rains and near-zero visibility. The Santos Air Force Base is extremely small, surrounded by obstructions that make for difficult landings at the best of times. Unable to visualize the runway at decision altitude the pilot decided to initiate standard missed approach procedures, which in the case of Santos AFB is an ascending left turnout. From that point until the crash nobody really knows what happened.

Recorded communications between the tower and pilot reporting the missed approach and go around were routine and extremely calm, so there was clearly nothing out of the ordinary up until that point. Whatever took place, happened in the moments following.

Of course the exact causes will not be known until the flight data recorder is analyzed. Given that this is Brazil that could take a great deal of time and even then it's likely that there will not be any consensus among authorities here. Unless Cessna steps in and requests copies of everything and has it analyzed by the NTSB in the USA we'll probably never know what really happened, and it's not even likely that the Brazilian government would even consider granting such a request even if Cessna made it.

NOTE: Edited out much of the previous information 14/08/2014: As is quite common with the Brazilian news media, none of what they were stating as confirmed facts were even correct.

The fact that communications were "routine and extremely calm" doesn't mean much when you consider how very calm all pilots and even astronauts sounds in even what end up being their final moments of life. It always amazes me how very composed they always sound even when they know how dire their situation is. But as we know pilots are not only trained to fly, they're trained to keep their cool and to ACT, NOT to RE-act.

And as far as CNN here in the USA, STILL no word on any of this horrendous event and loss.

On a personal note, William, did you know much about this Presidential candidate,and, if so, did you feel he was a real and viable hope for Brazil and its present problems? Or no?

Eduardo Campos was former 2 term Governor of the State of Pernambuco. Before that Campos was Minister of Science and Technology in the Lula government, 3 time Federal Deputado (Congressman) and served one term in the State Legislature of Pernambuco. He entered politics in 1991 and has been extremely popular throughout his entire political career. He was the grandson of former Pernambuco Governor Miguel Arraes. Campos was married to Renata Campos for many year and they have 5 children, the youngest being Miguel who was born on January 28th this year. Miguel was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. While definitely not a front-runner in the presidential elections he certainly was well qualified, extremely popular and was not to be counted out by any means. He will truly be missed by all Brazilians regardless of their political stripe.

As they say, only the good die young.

Thankfully a team of air crash investigators from the NTSB and representatives from Cessna have arrived in Santos to assist in the investigations. At least with their presence things will get done correctly and in an efficient manner.

They are going to have their work cut out for them because for some reason the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder was not functioning during this flight, the two hours of voice recordings that were on the device were from a previous flight from an as yet unknown date. However with new (confirmed) facts that are now coming to light it is beginning to look more likely that this was a case of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), that the pilots lost track of the aircraft's attitude in the dense cloud cover during the attempted go around, slamming into the ground at full speed.

Only time will tell if the full details of this crash will ever be completely known.

So what does the untimely death of presidential candidate Eduardo Campos really mean for us expats? We don't have a vote in this country unless we have naturalized as citizens (so technically we're not really expats anymore, but rather immigrants) and probably many of us aren't interested in Brazilian politics anyway.

Well, the short answer is that it should really mean a lot to all expats and would-be expats thinking of coming here.

Without a strong and credible third party candidate, which Campos truly was, Brazil faces two possible outcomes in the upcoming federal elections; 4 more years of the same old same old under the Worker's Party (PT) under Dilma Rousseff or the slightly less likely alternative of the election of Aécio Neves of Brazil's Social Democratic Party (PSDB).

Should Rousseff be re-elected it is quite likely that absolutely nothing is going to change in this country during the next 4 years. The economy will probably continue to grow at a much slower rate than predicted, but at least will grow a bit. The pressing issues of Public Security will continue to be ignored, since the PT has completely ignored the long promised revamping of the Penal Code and juvenile laws in this nation for the past 12 years, so we will all continue being vulnerable to ever increasing crime. Taxes will increase unabated and virtually none of that will be returned to society in the form of services they desparately need.

Another problem with maintaining the status quo is that immigration laws that even the president of the Conselho Nacional de Imigrações has publicly stated are woefully outdated and need to be completely re-written will almost certainly remain unchanged for the next 4 years. Life will continue to be a bureaucratic nightmare for all expats in Brazil.

Should Neves be elected, on the other hand, God only knows what's going to happen. While he does have extensive political experience, being a former Senator and Governor of the State of Minas Gerais, in my opinion he really wasn't much of a Governor or Senator for that matter . I really don't think that change, just for the sake of change is such a terrific idea.

Brazilians are in for a rough ride by the look of things, it's either pick the devil they know or the devil they don't know in every sense of the phrase. So if they're in for a rough ride, we're stuck in the same leaky boat right alongside them and we'll all have to help bale out the water with them or it's going to slip below the surface.