Mary Schiavo describes exactly what she saw when Voepass Linhas Aéreas Flight 2283 crashed in Brazil on Friday, killing all 62 people on board.
“This video has provided a tremendous amount of clues,” Schiavo said in an interview with Global News from Charleston, South Carolina, commenting on a cellphone video showing the passenger plane in a shallow spin.
The aviation lawyer and former Inspector General of the US Department of Transportation was asked to provide an overview of what investigators will be looking into after the crash of the ATR 72-500 near São Paulo, Brazil.
“It was clear that a total stall had occurred, and by the time the video was taken there was no way to save the aircraft,” Schiavo said.
Flight tracking data shows that the French-built twin-engine turboprop aircraft descended 17,000 feet in just one minute, although the reasons for the rapid descent are not yet known.
Based on the video and audio data widely shared on social media, Schiavo believes the plane apparently still had power.
“It was helpful to know that the engines were still running and there was no engine failure,” she said.
Nevertheless, based on video and radar, it appeared as if the passenger plane fell from the sky.
The email you need for the most important news of the day from Canada and around the world.
Get daily national news
Receive the most important news and headlines from politics, business and current events in your inbox once a day.
“According to the radar, it was very fast. They were traveling at 204 knots and then stopped moving at all,” she said.
“There was no air traffic control communication, there was no mayday, there was no notification to the tower that the flight path needed to be cleared for them, nothing; they had no time to communicate,” Schiavo added.
Some aviation experts in Brazil suspect that the crash may have been due to icing, a problem that has previously caused accidents involving the ATR 72.
The most notable incident was on October 31, 1994, when American Eagle Flight 4184 encountered severe icing between Indianapolis and Chicago. The ATR 72 went out of control and crashed into a field. All 68 passengers and passengers were killed.
At the time of the crash in Brazil, it was said that there was a weather warning due to a “high risk of icing” along the plane’s flight path.
Transport Canada certified the ATR 72-500 for operations in Canada in 2017. At the time, the French-Italian consortium claimed the aircraft was “the perfect solution for demanding markets like Canada.”
In a press release, ATR boasted of the aircraft’s ability to “fly in extreme cold and ice, as well as take off and land on unpaved and short runways. Their unmatched performance is invaluable.”
Airlines with ATR aircraft in their fleet include Calm Air, a regional airline in Manitoba, Canadian North, which serves the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and some provinces, and North Star, based in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
It will likely take weeks for investigators to determine the exact cause of the crash in Brazil, but after reviewing the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, Schiavo agrees that Transport Canada may want to review its certification of the ATR 72 depending on the outcome of the investigation.
She says she can understand why people are reluctant to fly this type of aircraft given renewed concerns about icing.
“Fear is a very important emotion and a very important feeling, and honestly, after seeing this accident, I honestly don’t want to get in an ATR even in icing,” she said.
“I can tell you that after the report from 1995 in the United States of America, where the terrible icing accident with the ATR occurred, I would not fly it again,”
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
