By: Helen Huang

On Friday, the VoePass Flight 2283 crashed in a residential area of Vinhedo, Brazil, killing 62 people on the plane. The lucky part is that none of the people on the ground got hurt or died. However, we don’t know the reason yet for this crash. Now, let’s talk about this tragedy.

On Saturday, Brazilian investigators began searching the black boxes to try to find out what caused the passenger plane to fall from 17,000 feet in the sky. But, to aviation experts around the world who watched the videos showing the 89-foot plane spinning slowly as it fell quickly to the earth, the plane was almost directly crashing on its belly.

After that, the question of what happened was simple to answer: the plane had stalled. In other words, the plane’s wings had lost the lift needed to keep the plane flying, causing it to stop flying and start falling towards the earth.

On the other hand, the question of why the plane might have stalled still remains a mystery. Did it lose significant speed? Did its nose pitch up too high? Did ice build up on its wings? Did an engine fall? Was its stall warning system working? Were the two pilots tired or distracted?

The leading theory for the crash so far is that the plane may have stalled because ice built up on its wings. But, there are also ways to melt the ice. The plane could travel at a higher speed, use the system that can break up ice that forms on the wings, or even fly lower to make the plane warmer and melt the ice! Thus, why the plane stalled still remains a mystery.