An ATR-72 turboprop plane operated by regional airline Voepass crashed on Friday (9) in a residential area in Vinhedo, in the interior of São Paulo, killing all 62 passengers on board.
Investigators have recovered the plane’s black box, which contains voice recordings and flight data, and a preliminary report is expected to be presented within 30 days, the head of the Aeronautical Accident Investigation and Prevention Center (Cenipa) said on Sunday (11).
How did the accident happen?
The plane was on its way to São Paulo from Cascavel, in the state of Paraná, and crashed at around 1:30 pm (Brasília time) in Vinhedo, about 80 km from São Paulo.
The aircraft was flying normally until 1:21 p.m., when it stopped responding to calls from São Paulo Approach Control, and radar contact was lost at 1:22 p.m., the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) said in a statement. The plane did not report any emergencies.
Videos of the crash show the sky was apparently clear when the plane began spinning in an unusual circular motion.
What will the experts investigate?
Anthony Brickhouse, a US aviation safety expert, said investigators would look at factors such as the weather and whether the engines and controls were working properly to help identify what caused the loss of control.
Could weather conditions have caused the accident?
Videos of the crash reviewed by aviation experts have led some to speculate that ice had accumulated on the plane. On Friday, Voepass said icing was expected at the altitudes the plane was flying at, but that it should be within an acceptable level.
Brazilian aeronautical engineer and accident investigator Celso Faria de Souza said that, judging by the video, he is almost certain that ice caused the crash.
The ATR-72 has had problems with icing in the past, with a 1994 crash in Indiana killing 68 people after the plane failed to bank due to ice buildup. Following that incident, ATR improved its de-icing system.
In 2016, in Norway, an ATR-72 faced problems due to ice buildup on the plane, but the pilot managed to regain control.
Could the engine have failed?
John Hansman, a professor in the department of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reviewed some of the videos of the crash shared on social media and, without having analyzed the flight data, said the crash did not appear to be caused by the weather.
It could have been an engine failure on one side, mismanaged by the crew, which would have led to the downward rotation, Hansman said.
Is it possible that there were multiple points of failure?
According to experts, plane crashes can be caused by a variety of factors, including icing, engine failure or human error. In many cases, there is more than one cause, said Robert A. Clifford, a lawyer who represented some of the families of the victims of the 1994 crash.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry in Mexico City, Stefanie Eschenbacher and Andre Romani in Sao Paulo, Anthony Boadle in Brasilia and Allison Lampert in Montreal)
Source: CNN Brasil
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