The ACCAR alternative to the hemispherical cruising altitude rules , if adopted in 1997 , could have eliminated the navigation paradox at all altitudes , and could have saved 342 lives in over 30 midair collisions ( up to November 2006 ) since Patlovany 's risk analysis proves that the current regulations increase the risk of a midair collision in direct proportion to pilot compliance . The Namibian collision in 1997 , the Japanese near-miss in 2001 , the Überlingen collision in Germany in 2002 , and the Amazon collision in 2006 , are all examples where human or hardware errors doomed altitude-accurate pilots killed by the navigation paradox designed into the current cruising altitude rules . The current system as described by Paielli noted as examples of other safety critical systems , nuclear power plants and elevators are designed to be passively safe and fault tolerant . The navigation paradox describes a midair collision safety system that by design can not tolerate a single failure in human performance or electronic hardware
Amazon collision
Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907
Navigation paradox