By: Elizabeth Kwan

Sixty-two passengers died on VoePass Flight 2283, a Brazil plane bound for Sao Paulo, after it spun downwards and fell from 17,000 feet (about 5.18 km) in the air on August 9, 2024. The exact cause remains unknown, but forensic workers are examining the wreckage to uncover a plausible solution.
Aeronautical experts across the globe watched recordings of the flight and all agreed that the plane had stalled. Its wing constantly lost force to keep the aircraft soaring, which explains why the 89-foot-long aircraft spun slowly toward the ground.

“The main thing we know is that it’s never one thing,” Thomas Anthony, Federal Aviation Administration Division Manager for Civil Aviation Security, explained.

So far, leading theories include icing on top of VoePass Flight 2283’s wing and a lack of communication between the pilots and air traffic control. The Average temperature around a height of 17,000 feet above sea level is around –18.5 degrees Celsius (-1.3 degrees Fahrenheit). At such an altitude, the temperature is low enough to form ice on planes. If pilots notice ice formation, they must contact air traffic control for approval to descend the plane.

Icing alone is rarely a cause for a stalling plane to crash. Forensic workers wonder about another reason for the fall. “They may have tried to speak and the radio failed,” said the Brazilian Aviation Security Association President Joselito Paulo. “Or they made the communication, but it wasn’t intercepted by air traffic control. If there was no communication, it was something very… unexpected.”

Meanwhile, over 40 families of the deceased sixty-two on VoePass Flight 2283 are grieving. One mother who lost her son in the crash, Tania Azevedo, said, “…Tiago is somewhere trying to help the other people wounded who also need light and love,” she said. “I couldn’t go [to the morgue.] I am here waiting. It is dark here[.] I need some light and love myself.”