ATR 72 crash, Cascavel and São Paulo, 9th August 2024

WishUWereHere

Breaking news on SKY that a 68 seater plane has crashed in Brazil.

I’m sure more developments will be reported as they are revealed.

Looptheloop30

Nothing good comes from that

https://x.com/volcaholic1/status/1821960876968104277

WishUWereHere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122484861#Comment_122484861

Horrific. Tragically Ltl, I suspect You are not exaggerating:(

Lewis_Benson

Oh ****.

That's horrific.

Wanderer78

oh thats terrifying, rip

Dazler97

Very sad indeed I was gonna start a thread but yous beat me too it

WishUWereHere

The plane was an ATR72, with 62 people on board according to SKY News

Horrible outcome. RIP to all involved.

Dazler97

There where no survivors according to sky news

Deja Boo

oh my, what terrible news, those poor folks and families!

Dazler97

The video is also available of the plane crashing

Hold My Hand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485332#Comment_122485332

No thanks

CPTM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485332#Comment_122485332

The video has already been posted above I think

CPTM

I suppose you've already seen it, but just to add to the thread the Flight radar data:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ps-vpb#368e25db

Any experts in here have any early opinions? Seems like a strange crash. Looks like a stall but shouldn't you recover from a stall at 15,000 feet?

Meirleach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485340#Comment_122485340

Not an expert by anymeans but it looked like the aircraft might have been in a flat spin.

chimp77

There a number of scary videos of ATRS captured, crashing down through the years. That one is particularly disturbing.

deandean

That's terrible to watch. I recall stories from Aer Lingus pilots training in FLA about how difficult it can be to recover a twin from a flat spin.

accensi0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485365#Comment_122485365

Never seen anything like that before. Looked like what happens to a helicopter!

Awful.

Damien360

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485340#Comment_122485340

That's just 2 minutes to fall 17000 feet and it had held that height for some time.

davepatr07

Horrible and so tragic..

I'm no expert but I noticed very closely 3 secs into that video a spark or flame coming out of Engine No 1 during its spin.. strange noise too..

RIP to those on board.

Tenger

Apparently warnings about ice in the area.

I've zero idea what could cause such a flat spin.

https://x.com/flightradar24/status/1821976858227044434?t=rgPZ0E6i9e4EWShfpQWI9Q&s=19

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485704#Comment_122485704

If a plane was level and stable enough for you to jump out of successfully with a parachute it probably wouldn't be crashing in the first place.

As an aside, there's nothing stopping you legally in bringing a parachute in your carry on if you fancy giving it a go.

geographica

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485069#Comment_122485069

Been revised to 61 I believe (not that it matters here)

terribly tragic. RIP

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485340#Comment_122485340

Its a stall. Probably a mechanical fault. [CASUAL RACISM REMOVED]

Rip to all involved.

geographica

a NOTAM was issued for icing between 12000 and 21000ft in the corridor they were in, PS-VPB was at 17000ft when they hit trouble

Slightly Kwackers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485855#Comment_122485855

Nothing stopping you legally, but I believe it's very, very difficult to even take a chute with you in the hold let alone the cabin.

Not sure if they just want the assengers to all go together, or maybe it's to stop people making off with the headphones :-)

OneEightSeven

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122486039#Comment_122486039

There are a few reasons why they don't bother putting parachutes on planes:

1. The air pressure difference inside and outside makes opening the door impossible.

2. The air is thin up there. Without an oxygen tank, you'll die of asphyxiation.

3. It's freezing up there. For jet planes, which fly at a higher altitude, it's between -40° C to -60° C. You'll freeze to death. With this plane, which was a propellor plane and flew at a lower altitude, it was between -10° C to -13° C.

4. Flying at a lower altitude gives you less time to evacuate the passengers. This plane went from 5000m to a fireball in less than 2 minutes.

John.G

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485651#Comment_122485651

https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/660783-august-9-2024-atr-72-crash-sao-paulo-brazil-flight-ptb2283.html

Tow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485651#Comment_122485651

A friend of my family who was an expert in aerodynamics used to talk about the Fokker 50 design and how a small amount of ice buildup in the wings badly degraded their performance.

User567363

I'm glad i dont fly

wanderer 22

Maybe less of the jokes? RIP to all.

davepatr07

"Images broadcast on local media showed a large plane nosediving at high speed, while other footage showed a large column of smoke rising from the crash site in what appeared to be a residential area."

What sort of journalism is that..

bassy

<Snip> completely unacceptable comment.

Noxegon

[DELETED WITHOUT PREJUDICE]

I'd personally prefer to wait for a report before I decide that it was a mechanical issue. There are many, many possible causes for an aircraft going into a flat spin like this.

Tenger

MOD POST

MULTIPLE UNACCEPTABLE AND INAPPROPRIATE POSTS DELETED.

ANY MORE BIZARE RANTS WILL BE SIMILARLY TREATED AND FORUM BAN WILL BE GIFTED.

MOD POST

cantalach

Could a mod change the thread title to ‘Brazil plane crash’ or something more descriptive?

WishUWereHere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122487235#Comment_122487235

as I started the thread I’ve added ‘Brazilian’.

Sorry if my original title wasn’t descriptive enough.

GBX

Interesting tweet about the accident

https://x.com/scottiebateman/status/1822246416594747674

Phil.x

Don't air lingus use these types of aircraft? I

2011abc

Yes ,they are extremely common worldwide

reubenreuben

Do these Planes have a faulty design as loads of issues have been reported with them when icy weather conditions.

EchoIndia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122487988#Comment_122487988

Can you provide details of the "loads of issues"? There have been a handful of ice-related accidents with the ATR series in the forty years since the basic type first flew, and almost 1,800 have been delivered to date.

Strumms

would this aircraft have been fitted with anti / de-ice boots ?

breadmond

Yes ATRs have deicing boots, the whole fleet was retrofitted with more effective boots after an icing related crash in the US. That said the ATR isn't certified for severe icing conditions and the boots can be overwhelmed by large ice accretions. The sigmet from the time of the incident definitely suggests ice as a root cause but we won't know for sure until the investigation is done

Tow

The wing design of this type of aircraft is highly efficient, the downside is that it quickly loses aerodynamic efficiency if ice builds builds up. This is nothing new.

Deatr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122488480#Comment_122488480

To my knowledge and having flown 3 types including the ATR, no aircraft is certified to operate in severe icing conditions. Happy to be corrected though!

Slightly Kwackers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122487988#Comment_122487988

I read of the icing issue, I used to fly on the Cork Birmingham route a lot.

I think one came down in Canada, I was not aware of icing issues in these parts.

The only other thing I recall was an Aer Lingus ATR that had a hydraulic cylinder fitted the wrong way in Ireland. I think it was part of an assembly to restrict the control surface travel when at speed and the manufacturers method of identifying the means of installation was found to be lacking. This was found without any incident arising and the plane returned to land.

By all accounts a safe plane. A tad noisy, but I always looked forward to my trips.

reubenreuben

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122488221#Comment_122488221

Are a handful of crashes not enough? There have been plenty of reports of ice related issues over the years but pilots recovered the plane.

EchoIndia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122491218#Comment_122491218

Yes, there have been ice-related accidents and you are right that the ATR does not do well in ice if the stuation is not recognised and responded to quickly. We don't yet know what chain of events led to this accident and, even if it was ice-related, you can be sure that there were other factors involved as well. If you look at online lists of ice-related air crashes, a few involve the ATR series but you will find other types, both prop and jet, also. By my reckoning, there are 800 or more ATR-72s and a couple of hundred ATR-42s in service worldwide, in all sorts of climates, and the type remains in production, so I think it is a bit of a leap to suggest that it is a faulty design. Anyway, let's hope that the investigation gets to the heart of what happened and makes any safety recommendations deemed necessary.

NIMAN

How is it acceptable to have a plane that suffers from ice related issues when it flies at a height, which another poster said, will be in temps of -13c?

EchoIndia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122491435#Comment_122491435

The issue is whether conditions are conducive to the formation of ice, not a specific temperature. Otherwise, you wouldn't be seeing these aircraft in service in Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia or Russia to name but a few regions.

lintdrummer

I'll preface my comment by saying we don't know if ice was a factor in this crash, time will tell.

That said, I think it would be beneficial to the more casual visitors on this thread to explain the difference between anti-icing and de-icing.

Most, if not all modern jet passenger aircraft use an anti-icing system to keep the wing leading edges and the engine nacelles free of ice build up. It's critical that these particular surfaces are kept free of ice build up because ice disturbs the aerodynamic flow significantly. Disturbed airflow into an engine can cause the compressor to stall. Disturbed airflow over the wing can cause the wing to stall. Anti-ice systems typically take hot air from the engine compressor and send it where it's needed through a system of ducts. This prevents ice from forming.

The ATR uses a mechanical de-icing system. Rubber boots along the wing leading edge are inflated at set intervals to mechanically break away ice that has begun to form. So the system is designed to allow a small amount of ice to build before removing it (hence de-icing) and this cycle continues whilst icing conditions prevail. In severe icing conditions it's possible that ice forms so quickly that the boots are unable to break it off and are simply inflating and deflating under a layer of ice. It's important to note that anti-icing systems as described above are also not immune to severe icing and pilots of all aircraft types will be trained to avoid known areas of severe icing and, if they encounter such an area unwittingly, to get out of it immediately by turning around or descending to warmer air. It is also worth mentioning that both anti-icing systems and de-icing systems are not on at all times, they need to be switched on by the pilots. On the airbus, engine anti-ice is switched on when there is visible moisture outside and the temperature is between +10 and -40. Wing anti-ice is switched on when icing is visible on a probe outside the windshield (or any other surface including the wing which may be visible from the cockpit side window).

I don't know why the ATR was designed with a de-icing system rather than an anti-icing system. I would be inclined to say that anti-icing is the superior solution to the problem. However, no matter what system is installed on the aircraft, if the pilots don't recognise the severe icing threat quickly enough or take appropriate actions to get out of the situation, the end result will be the same.

Again, we don't know if icing is a factor in this particular accident. RIP to all the lost souls.