Annie Walton Doyle
The last words of a pilot on an ill-fated plane that crashed and killed 62 people on board have been revealed.
Pilot Danilo Santos Romano would reportedly have become aware of the aircraft’s tragic fate just moments before its fatal impact.
Amid the chaos his final words were recorded, creating a heartbreaking picture.
The aircraft, an ATR-72 turboprop from airline Veopass, was on a scheduled flight from Cascavel, a city in the Brazillian state of Paraná, to Guarulhos, in São Paulo state.
According to the Brazilian Air Force, the aircraft flew normally until 1:21 p.m. local time, when it suddenly stopped responding to radio calls. By 1:22 p.m., radar contact was lost, reports Reuters.
The plane did not report any emergency, with the crash occurring around 1:30 p.m. local time in the town of Vinhedo, São Paulo state.
Shortly after, videos emerged on social media showing the aircraft spiraling out of control before disappearing behind a cluster of trees.
Moments later, a large plume of black smoke rose into the sky, signaling the devastating end of the flight.
Initially, Voepass reported 61 people on board, but the discovery of an unaccounted-for passenger later brought the total to 62, reports Sky News.
All passengers and crew members on board perished in the accident. No one on the ground was harmed.
Among the victims was Liz Ibba dos Santos, a three-year-old girl who was traveling with her father, as well as several prominent doctors who were en route to a cancer conference in São Paulo, reports the BBC.
Following the tragedy, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated, per CNN: “I would like everyone to stand up so that we can observe a minute of silence because a plane has just crashed in the city of Vinhedo, in São Paulo, with 58 passengers and four crew members and it appears they all died.”
In the days following the crash, several people came forward to say they narrowly avoided boarding the doomed flight.
One passenger revealed that he missed the flight after arriving late to the gate, telling Globo: “My legs are shaking; only God knows how I’m feeling. Thank God, we didn’t get on that plane.”
Although the exact cause of the crash is still unknown, several theories are being explored – with the leading theory being de-icing.
Metsul, a respected meteorological organization in Brazil, noted reports of severe icing in the area around the time of the crash, per MailOnline.
Icing involves water droplets freezing and collecting on an aircraft’s surfaces, such as its wings, and can hinder its performance.
Brazilian crash investigator Celso Faria de Souza is among those who believe icing may have played a role in this latest accident, with ATR-72 aircraft having had issues with icing in the past. reports MailOnline.
In a 1994 incident in Indiana, an ATR-72 crashed after being unable to bank, killing 68 people, per Reuters. This incident prompted the manufacturer to improve the aircraft’s de-icing system, though problems have still occurred.
In 2016, another ATR-72 experienced icing issues in Norway, but the pilot was able to regain control of the aircraft, preventing a disaster.
Voepass confirmed that icing was predicted at the altitude the plane was flying, but has maintained that these conditions were within acceptable limits.
With footage from the crash showing the weather appearing clear at the time of the tragedy, some experts are ruling out weather as the primary cause.
John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, reviewed the footage and suggested that an engine failure could have triggered the plane’s uncontrolled spiral.
Hansman believes the crew may have mismanaged the failure, leading to the downward rotation seen in videos of the crash online.
In a press conference, Voepass CEO Eduardo Busch said: “The entire crew was competent.
“We are waiting for access to all communications between the pilot and the control tower to have a broader understanding of what happened.”
According to Globo TV, which cited unnamed sources from the investigation, the pilots became aware of the aircraft’s rapid loss of altitude just one minute before the fatal impact.
Yet this isn’t the only thing to have been revealed about what was happening aboard the aircraft.
The plane’s black box, an aircraft’s recording device, has shed further light on the tragedy of August 9, 2024.
According to its full transcript, pilot Romano is recorded saying the plane needed ‘more power’ to be stabilized, before uttering: “What is going on?”
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