SAO PAULO -(Dow Jones)- A woman who had two relatives die in a mid-air collision between a Brazilian commercial jet and a small executive jet filed suit against Honeywell International Inc. (HON), U.S. air taxi service ExcelAire Service Inc. and the pilots of their small plane, according to court documents filed with the Eastern District Court of New York.

Suellen de Abreu Lleras lost her husband and son when a Boeing Co. (BA) 737- 800 jet, run by Brazilian airline Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes (GOL), or Gol, clashed wings with a Legacy jet owned and operated by ExcelAire, causing what has been called Brazil's worst air accident. The jetliner went into a spiral, crashing into dense Amazon forest and killing all 154 people on board. The Legacy jet managed a forced landing at a nearby military air strip.

The suit, brought by U.S. law firms Ribbeck Law and Colson Hicks Eidson, highlights careless and negligent behavior by the pilots of the executive jet, which was made by local planemaker Embraer (ERJ).

Meanwhile, the two law firmswill seek damages from Honeywell for 'defective design' of the transponder in the Legacy jet. The equipment, which is designed to send out alert signals to air traffic control and other aircraft, wasn't operating at the time of the crash, according to Brazilian government officials.

The suit is the second filed on behalf of crash victims families. On Monday, U.S. law firm Leiff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein filed a similar case at the same New York court.

The lawyers will seek damages from the pilots, Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino, and from ExcelAire, based on a deposition from New York Times journalist Joe Sharkey, a passenger on the Legacy jet. Sharkey's deposition alleges the pilots were indulging in inappropriate maneuvers to test the plane. That accusation was also made by defense ministry investigators, said Monica Kelly, a partner at Ribbeck Law, during a press conference in Sao Paulo.

"We have evidence the pilots wanted to show off what the plane could do," Kelly said.

Both the Boeing and the Embraer jet had Honeywell transponders. The Boeing transponder should have been able to tell the pilot that the executive jet was near, independently of whether the Legacy transponder was on, said Kelly.

In a statement issued earlier this week, Honeywell said it was "not aware of any evidence that indicates that its transponder on the Embraer Legacy was not functioning as designed or that Honeywell was responsible for the accident."

ExcelAire said in a statement that its pilots were following instructions from air traffic control at the time of the accident.

Kelly said that Ribbeck Law is in talks with a number of victim families and hopes to eventually represent families of over 100 of the victims.

-By Alastair Stewart; Dow Jones Newswires; 5511 3145 1479; alastair.stewart@ dowjones.com

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  11-09-06 1839ET
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