While it is too early to determine with any certainty what caused a devastating airplane crash in Brazil last week, air disaster experts say the incident bears similarity to a landmark crash 30 years ago that triggered major safety reforms. <\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s Voepass 2283 flight from Cascavel, near Brazil\u2019s border with Paraguay, to Guarulhos in S\u00e3o Paulo state, crashed after flying through an area where \u201csevere icing\u201d was forecast between 12,000 and 21,000 feet, according to a publicly available alert to pilots. <\/p>\n
The flight was cruising at 17,000 feet, according to data from FlightAware, when the pilots appeared to lose control. <\/p>\n
Numerous videos posted on social media show the turboprop ATR 72 in an apparent flat spin as it spiraled toward the ground with no visible forward movement. All 62 passengers and the crew were killed when the plane crashed near Vinhedo, making it 2024\u2019s deadliest crash of a commercial airliner. <\/p>\n
In-flight icing can \u201cdistort the flow of air over the wing and adversely affect handling qualities,\u201d according to Federal Aviation Administration documents, triggering an airplane to \u201croll or pitch uncontrollably, and recovery may be impossible.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIcing is perhaps the leading theory,\u201d said former NTSB co-chair Bruce Landsberg. \u201cAs we progress through the investigation, things will start to solidify.\u201d <\/p>\n
The French-Italian ATR 72 has \u201ccheckered record\u201d Goelz said. On October 31, 1994, an ATR 72 crashed in Roselawn, Indiana; the American Eagle flight 4184 had encountered severe, in-flight icing from freezing drizzle. <\/p>\n
All 68 people on board were killed. <\/p>\n
Significant testing followed that crash, and the Federal Aviation Administration mandated a modification to the deicing system on the front edge of ATR 72 wings as well as more training for pilots on severe ice encounters. <\/p>\n
Today, and in the light of the Voepass incident, Goelz says, \u201cI think the question of whether this plane is safe in icing is worth a serious revisit.\u201d <\/p>\n
There are roughly 800 ATR 72s flying worldwide today, according to Goelz. But no major airlines in the United States currently operate the ATR 72, meaning travelers in the US are unlikely to encounter them domestically, but could very well fly in one while traveling abroad. <\/p>\n
The ATR 72 utilizes deicing \u201cboots,\u201d designed to expand and physically break apart ice that accumulates on wings. Jet airliners often use heat ducted from the engines to melt ice on the wings, known as bleed air. <\/p>\n
\u201cTurboprop aircraft don\u2019t do as well as jet aircraft in severe weather conditions,\u201d said Landsberg, who is writing a book on aviation safety including the Roselawn crash. \u201cA jet likely would not have been at that altitude.\u201d <\/p>\n
Following reports of Friday\u2019s crash, ATR said it was aware of an accident and is working to support investigators. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this event. The ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n
Until investigators from Brazil and France begin to seriously dig into the crash, the cause will remain a mystery, Landsberg says. \u201cAviation safety doesn\u2019t lend itself to quick answers.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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While it is too early to determine with any certainty what caused a devastating airplane crash in Brazil last week, air disaster experts say the incident bears similarity to a landmark crash 30 years ago that triggered major safety reforms. Friday\u2019s Voepass 2283 flight from Cascavel, near Brazil\u2019s border with Paraguay, to Guarulhos in S\u00e3o Paulo state, crashed after <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}