The pilots of an airliner that crashed in Brazil killing all 62 people on board reported a failure in the plane’s de-icing system just minutes before it went down, investigators have revealed.
Although careful not to attribute it as the main cause of the accident, their report supports the main hypothesis put forward by aviation experts that a build-up of ice on the wings compromised lift.
Weather reports from the day of the crash predicted ice formation and audio from the cockpit suggested the pilots were aware but were unable to remove it, the country’s Center for Research and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa) said on Friday.
Just two minutes before it went down, the co-pilot could be heard saying: ‘A lot of ice.’
Analysis of the plane’s data recorder also indicated its de-icing system, responsible for preventing a dangerous build-up on the wings, was turned on and off several times, the report said.
‘There are still many doubts,’ Carlos Henrique Baldin, head of the center’s investigation division, said.
‘This accident shouldn’t have happened, not in the conditions in which the plane was flying and was being operated. It had protection equipment.’
The ATR-72 aircraft from local carrier Voepass took off from the city of Cascavel, in Parana state, bound for Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos international airport on August 9.
Footage of it plummeting to the ground in a flat spin in the city of Vinhedo, roughly 50 miles northwest of Sao Paulo, horrified people across Brazil and around the world.
Henrique Hacklaender, the president of the national aviators’ union, told the Associated Press: ‘Based on the preliminary report, it isn’t possible to conclusively affirm that ice on the wings caused the accident, but there are indications ice formation was a significant contributing factor.’
He said the ATR 72’s de-icing system is manually controlled by pilots, and the preliminary report reveals that it was activated during the flight, indicating an attempt to use it.
However, the report doesn’t clarify if the system was actually employed, he added.
Three experts interviewed by Reuters suggested that icing could have played a role in the crash, but urged caution as the report is preliminary and accidents are caused by multiple factors.
US aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said: ‘Everything I have read from the report today is consistent with icing, but accidents are rarely caused by one single event.’
According to officials, loss of speed alerts were triggered, but the ATR’s crew never declared an emergency situation before the plane spiralled down to the ground.
Cenipa officials on Friday also said it is still unclear to them why an aircraft with all necessary certifications ended up losing control and falling.
‘What we know is that the airplane was flying in an area with severe icing conditions,’ said lieutenant colonel Paulo Froes.
The carrier said in a statement that the report confirmed that the aircraft and the pilots were properly certified, adding that the ATR’s required systems were in operation.
It added the company would continue cooperating with the investigations.
The airline crash was the deadliest since January 2023, when 72 people died on board a Yeti Airlines plane in Nepal that stalled and crashed while making its landing approach.
That plane also was an ATR 72, and the final report blamed pilot error.
An American Eagle ATR 72-200 crashed on October 31, 1994, and the US National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause was ice build-up while the plane was circling in a holding pattern.
The plane rolled at about 8,000 feet and dove into the ground, killing all 68 people on board.
The US Federal Aviation Administration issued operating procedures for ATRs and similar planes telling pilots not to use the autopilot in icing conditions.
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