By: Jackson Liu
On August 9th 2024, a passenger plane, Voepass Flight 2283, flying to Sao Paulo, Brazil fell from 17,000 feet in the air into a small city called Vinhedo, Brazil. Brazilian officials are investigating the black box (a device with footage from the airplane). All 62 people on the airplane died and officials have already recovered 42 of them. Experts looking at footage said that the crash was caused by stalling, when an airplane loses lift in its wings.
One of the most likely causes for the crash is icing on the wings. Icing is when cold temperature forms ice on parts of the plane such as the wings and windows. when icing forms on the wings, it reduces aerodynamic ability of the plane by causing it to stall at much higher speeds than if there weren’t ice. The aircraft was going at 325 miles per hour, before slowing down sharply right before it fell down. normally, the speed needed for stalling is much lower than the speed of the plane before it crashed. This means that the icing was really severe. The way the plane fell, spinning to the ground was distinctive of planes that had lost control of a wing and some aircraft controls, which is what happens when an airplane stalls because of icing. Officials had released a severe icing alert around the place where the aircraft fell, and another aircraft which passed the area earlier reported icing.
The crew might also be the cause of the plummet. They might not have activated the anti – icing system, or they did and it failed. If it fails, the crew is supposed to lower the altitude to warmer air pockets to melt the ice. In order to do that, the crew would have had to alert the air traffic control tower in the airport. Strangely, the tower received no communications from the flight. This means that on flight radios were broken, or the stalling must have been very sudden, making the crew not have time to contact a control tower. If the ice warning mechanism malfunctions, the pilots and crew should have been able to see overly large amounts of ice on the windows.
If the systems mentioned in this article all malfunctioned, then that means the manufacturers need to improve equipment. If it is the crew’s problem, then the airline should choose crew members more carefully. This tragic event has caused family members of those who died to mourn.