AREQUIPA, Peru – Details of the preliminary report from the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa) came to light this Friday on the cause of the plane crash that left 62 dead last August 9 in Brazil.
According to news agency reports EFE and Latin PressThe voice recorder in the cockpit of the ATR-72 turboprop of the Voepass airline that crashed in the municipality of Vinhedo, in Sao Paulo, recorded conversations by the co-pilot about “giving power” to the aircraft minutes before the crash.
The two hours of transcription were made by the data reading and analysis laboratory of Cenipa, which is linked to the Brazilian Air Force (FAB).
According to investigators, preliminary analysis of the data reveals that the plane suddenly lost altitude. Cockpit audio analysis alone is unable to provide an apparent cause for the crash.
The report also indicates that the aircraft flew in “severe” conditions of ice build-up on its fuselage for an hour, but investigators have not yet confirmed whether this was the trigger for the accident.
The plane crashed into a residential complex in Vinhedo, a city in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo, lost control and began to fall after its pilots activated the system that breaks up ice on the fuselage at least three times.
The director of Cenipa, Brigadier General Marcelo Moreno, explained that due to the complexity of the investigation, the authorities must exhaust all other hypotheses. The data, so far, are preliminary.
“What we have in fact 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,” the executive said.
FAB investigators said the pilots were aware of the difficult weather conditions before takeoff, as the services warned of the high possibility of ice formation at altitudes between 12,000 and 20,000 feet, and the plane flew at 17,000 feet.
The meteorological services also warned of conditions conducive to ice accumulation. This scenario was confirmed by the data contained in the black boxes and even the co-pilot commented two minutes before the accident that there was “a lot of ice”.
Although the reason is not yet known, the report revealed that the pilots themselves commented during the flight about difficulties with the ice prevention system on and flew for six minutes without the tool on.
“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 said.
The flight tracking website Flight Radar 24 said the aircraft flew for nearly an hour at 17,000 feet (5,180 meters), until at 1:21 p.m. (local time) it began to lose altitude and in just one minute it had a sharp drop to 4,000 feet (1,250 meters).
The FAB reported that the aircraft lost contact with the radar at 1:22 p.m. (local time) on August 9 and that the crew at no time “declared an emergency or reported being under adverse weather conditions”.
People involved in the investigation say it is still premature to talk about suspects, but hypotheses of negligence or imprudence have not been ruled out.
The possibility of a crime with possible intent also emerged, when the risk of committing it is assumed, even if that was not the intention.
The Voepass plane crash is the world’s largest accident of the year in terms of the number of victims, according to the Aviation Safety Network website.
