Rio de Janeiro, Sep 6 (EFE).- The preliminary report on the accident of the Voepass airline plane that left 62 victims Last August 9th in Brazil indicates that the device flew in conditions «severe» ice build-up on its fuselage for an hour, but investigators have not yet confirmed whether this was the cause of the tragedy.
According to the report released this Friday by the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa), the plane that crashed into a housing condominium in Vinhedo, a city in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo, It lost control and began to fall after its pilots activated the system that breaks up the ice on the fuselage at least three times.
These data, however, are preliminary and do not yet confirm that this was the cause of the accident, which investigators will try to verify with new information, clarified the director of Cenipa, Brigadier General Marcelo Moreno.
“Due to the complexity of the investigation, we have to exhaust all other hypotheses. What we have so far is that the aircraft had nothing that prevented it from taking off; that it was certified to fly in icing conditions; that the crew was trained to fly in those conditions and that at no time did they declare an emergency,” he said.
According to investigators from the agency linked to the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), the pilots knew about the difficult weather conditions before taking off, as the services warned about the high possibility of ice formation at altitudes between 12,000 and 20,000 feet, and the aircraft flew at 17,000 feet.
Weather services also warned of falling temperatures and high humidity along the plane’s route, which are conditions conducive to ice accumulation.
These conditions were confirmed by data from the flight recorders (black boxes) and even the co-pilot commented two minutes before the accident that there was “quite a bit of ice.”
The report also revealed that the pilots themselves commented during the flight about a problem with the ice prevention system and that they flew for six minutes without the tool on, although the reason is still unknown.
“There is a comment in which one of the crew members indicates that there was a failure in the de-icing system, but that information was not confirmed in the data system,” Moreno clarified.
According to the report, upon receiving clearance to head to Sao Paulo airport and land, the plane began a curve to the right at a 32-degree angle, but then suddenly turned left at a 52-degree angle and then again to the right at a 94-degree angle.
Investigators said they do not yet know whether the maneuvers were carried out by the pilot himself in an attempt to control the aircraft or whether they were a consequence of the aircraft’s instability.
The aircraft then went into a tailspin, spinning five times on its axis before crashing to the ground.
The crashed plane, a French-made twin-engine ATR-72-500, was flying from Cascavel to São Paulo with 58 passengers and four crew on board, and crashed about 80 kilometres from its destination.
Despite landing in a residential area, the aircraft crashed into the backyards of a housing complex without damaging any buildings or leaving any victims on the ground.
