Images and video from Brazil confirm the tragic loss of a Voepass ATR-72 turboprop and its occupants, which crashed into a residential area.
This accident happened on Friday the 9th of August. It involved Voepass Linhas Aéreas flight 2Z-2283, a daily service departing from Cascavel Adalberto Mendes da Silva Airport (SBCA) in Brazil. The domestic flight’s destination is Sao Paulo Guarulhos International (SBGR). It usually takes just under 2 hours.
The accident flight had 58 passengers (including an initially unlisted passenger) and 4 crew on board. It appears to have departed from Cascavel with a 20-minute delay, using runway 15. Then most of the flight appeared to be routine, with the aircraft cruising at FL170.
The Voepass aircraft seems to have remained at that altitude until it began an extremely steep descent. ADS-B data from FlightRadar24 and similar websites remains inconclusive about the aircraft’s speed before the event. Speed data was wrong on previous flights, too.
Voepass ATR 72 Spins Into The Ground
Multiple videos show the Voepass aircraft out of control, spinning towards the ground. The aircraft was northwest of its Sao Paulo, at a point where it should have begun its descent towards its destination airport.
The aircraft impacted a residential area. None of the occupants survived the crash. At the time of publishing this article, available information suggested that there were no further casualties among those on the ground.
Official authorities in Brazil report that the Voepass flight crew did not declare an emergency during the accident. An official investigation is already underway. ATR, the aircraft manufacturer, has stated that it is prepared to assist in the investigation.
The accident aircraft was a fourteen-year-old ATR 72-500, with tail number PS-VPB. Voepass took delivery of the aircraft in October 2022. The plane’s owner is lessor Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC). The airline has a total of 14 ATR 72s, not including the one lost in this tragedy.
Updates
A SIGMET warning flight crews of severe icing was in effect at the time of the crash. The role of icing in the event remains unclear.
Local authorities in Valinhos, near Vinhedo, announced that the Voepass aircraft hit the home of an elderly couple. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in that home or in nearby structures. However, a post-crash fire caused further damage.
Investigators and first responders have identified and retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders. The FDR and CVR have been sent to Brazilia, for read-out and analysis.
Voepass Crash Update: Preliminary Report Released
Brazil’s CENIPA released its Preliminary Report on the Voepass crash. The report doesn’t include conclusions, but it indicates that the aircraft was suffering from a degraded performance due to icing.
The aircraft’s systems gave the flight crew several warnings, advising them to increase their speed, at a time when Air Traffic Control delayed their descent due to other traffic. Soon afterwards, the aircraft went out of control, making five full rotations in a flat spin, before impacting the ground.
CENIPA Preliminary Report
Also, check out the MentourNOW video below:
6 comments
Graham Nield
I would bet on a stall and that the plane had a problem with icing or with the the pitot tube or maybe ice and the tubes and pilot thought he was going a different speed, something along those lines
Pole North
Unless a critical flight surface broke off in mid-flight, to my untrained eyes, the captured video look like an aerodynamic stall. We’ve all seen many crashes in the past (eg. Air France 447) caused by pilots pulling the yolk back (pointing the nose up) instead of down to recover from such a stall.
topgun 145
severe icing was reported at the for the altitude they were at before the crash i hope this is not another Roselawn
Pole North
So perhaps ice caused the plane to lose its aerodynamic properties or like Air France 447, ice blocked the pitot tube and the pilots mishandled the situation. It looked like a cloudy day so maybe the pilots didn’t know how fast they were going and got disoriented, lost situational awareness and by the time they came out of the clouds, it was too late to recover.
UniAir2984
Yeah. Typical winter day here in Brazil. Cloudy, 17ºC on the ground at the moment of crash and severe icing conditions between 12.000 and 21.000ft accordingly to reports.
Pole North
Flightaware indicates the plane was descending at 12000 ft/min and went from a cruising altitude of 17,000 ft to hitting the ground in 1.5 minutes.