By: Hannah Zhang

On the 9th of August, 2024, a Brazilian plane crashed near São Paulo, Brazil, killing all 62 people on board. As investigations to find the cause of the crash continue, aviation experts have formed theories based on videos and other clues.

Victims of the crash included 58 passengers and 4 crew members, while no one on the ground was injured. A definite cause behind the disaster remains unknown, but one thing that aviation experts around the world can agree on is that the plane had stalled, which occurs when an aircraft wing stops producing lift due to an excessive angle of attack.

Why the plane had stalled, however, is a question that no one has been able to answer.

Possible reasons included losing speed, a damaged stall-warning system, a failed engine, or distracted pilots, but everything remains uncertain.

In the words of Thomas Anthony, director of the Aviation Safety Program at the University of Southern California, “The main thing we know is that it’s never one thing.”

Crash investigators stated on August 10th that they had managed to recover the plane’s two black boxes that contained recordings from the cockpit and flight data, and were analyzing them in an effort to retain information.The most probable theory that has appeared so far is that the plane crashed due to severe icing, in which ice formed on parts of the plane, damaging its ability to fly.

Despite this, experts say, icing should not be able to crash a plane by itself. Pilots can usually prevent a stall caused by icing, even if parts of the plane’s system are malfunctioning. The ice on the windshield wipers and wings should have been visible, and the pilots could have flown to a lower altitude to melt the ice. To do this, pilots would, under normal circumstances, alert the air traffic controllers. There was no record of an attempt to communicate before the crash, whatsoever.

No communication would then indicate that the crash happened without warning. “It’s a starting point,” stated Marcel Moura, operations director of VoePass, the airline operating the flight, “But it’s still very early to make a diagnosis.”

As of the evening of August 10, officials had sifted through the wreckage trying to recover the bodies of the victims and succeeded in finding 42 of the 62 people that died. There is still no definite end date to the investigation.