BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - An air force report Wednesday blamed Brazilian air traffic controllers and two U.S. pilots for a midair collision over the Amazon that killed 154 people, but found no evidence the Americans intentionally turned off a transponder that warns of approaching aircraft.

An Embraer Legacy 600 flown by Joseph Lepore of Bay Shore, New York, and Jan Paladino of Westhampton Beach, New York, collided with a Brazilian Boeing 737 operated by Gol airlines on Sept. 29, 2006.

The Boeing plunged into the jungle and disintegrated on impact, killing all aboard. The smaller plane, owned by ExcelAire Service Inc. of Ronkonkoma, New York, was damaged but landed safely.

The 277-page Brazilian air force report said Lepore and Paladino did not have sufficient knowledge of the aircraft's avionics, resulting in the inadvertent switching off of the plane's transponder and the collision-avoidance system.

"There is no indication that allows us to conclude that the transponder was intentionally turned off," the report said.

The Brazilian flight controllers failed to notice that the transponder was on standby and did not warn the American pilots that they were flying at the wrong altitude and on a collision course with the Boeing, the report said.