Cockpit audio indicates de-icing problems in deadly Brazil plane crash last month, investigators say

Preliminary report suggests ice formation may have contributed to Brazilian plane crash that killed 62 people.

The pilots of a Brazilian passenger plane that crashed last month, killing all 62 people aboard, reported failure in the system to remove ice from the plane, according to a preliminary report made public on Friday (September 6, 2024).

Investigators in Brazil were careful to avoid saying this was the cause of the accident, and stressed there was more work to be done. Still, their report lent further credence to aviation experts' main hypothesis: that the lift loss had been caused by ice formation on the plane's wings and failure of its de-icing system.

Weather reports from the day of the accident predicted ice formation in the region where the plane went down.

Audio from the cockpit's voice recorder included comments from pilots indicating ice was accumulating and there was a failure in the de-icing system, Paulo Fróes, an investigator in the the air force's centre for the investigation and prevention of air accidents, told reporters in Brasilia.

Just two minutes before the crash, the copilot said, "A lot of ice." The plane's data recorder also indicated that its de-icing system, responsible for preventing ice build-up on wings, turned on and off several times, according to their report.

"There are still many doubts. This accident shouldn't have happened, not in the conditions in which the plane was flying and was being operated. It had protection equipment," said Carlos Henrique Baldin, head of the centre's investigation division.

Operated by the airline Voepass, the flight departed August 9 from the city of Cascavel, in Parana state, bound for Sao Paulo's Guarulhos international airport. It crashed into the backyard of a home in a gated community in the city of Vinhedo, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of the metropolis of Sao Paulo.