All eyes are on Brazil after the tragic plane crash that killed 61 people when the jet hurled down in a mysterious death spiral.
Residents of the small village of Vinhedo outside Sao Paulo could only watch in horror as the passenger plane began its deadly spiral to the ground on Friday, crashing into a garden.
The VoePass Flight 2283 was only minutes away from landing to Sao Paulo Guarulhos airport when the tragedy struck, killing all on board.
Now the aviation industry is speculating what could have caused the deadly malfunction.
The short answer is, no one knows for sure yet what caused the death spiral, but the shocking footage has revealed some clues.
Captain Ross Aimer, who has more than 40 years of pilot experience in the US, said the plane may have suffered an engine failure, flight control malfunction or a critical part like a wing could have fallen off.
Once the death spiral begins, ‘it’s very hard to get out of it,’ he told DailyMail.com.
Others have speculated that icing could have played a role in the crash and explosion of the regional turboprop plane ATR-72 into the residential neighbourhood.
Aviation Youtuber Blancolirio analysed the moment the plane plummeted and what investigators might be looking at next.
‘Accident investigators are going to be looking very close at the weather in this situation, and specifically icing conditions,’ he said.
He suggested that ‘severe icing conditions’ could have existed at the time and claimed that the type of plane is prone to icing because of its high flight altitude at around 17,000 ft in the icing zone.
Air tracking shows that the plane plummeted between 8,000 and 24,000 ft per minute, according to Flightradar24.
But no emergency signal was switched on by the pilots which has added to the mystery now plaguing local officials.
The 14-year-old twin-engine turboprop plane was compliant with safety regulations and it had valid airworthiness certificates, Brazilian authorities said.
However, some experts are raising the alarm over jumping into conclusions too soon.
Lito Sousa, a Brazilian aviation expert, said no air accident or crash can be contributed to ‘a sole factor,’ but icing may have played a role.
‘We need a chain of events for something bad to happen. So in that case, ice may have played a role,’ he told the New York Times.
Eyewitnesses described what they saw as the plane began its horizontal spiral.
Villager Daniel de Lima said he heard a loud noise before spotting the falling plane.
He told Reuters: ‘It was rotating, but it wasn’t moving forward.
‘Soon after it fell out of the sky and exploded.’
Authorities said the flight recorded have now been collected, the BBC reports, while Brazil’s federal police said an investigation has been launched.
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