A black box retrieved from the doomed Brazilian plane reveals the final haunting sounds heard before the aircraft crashed, killing everyone on board.
The 58 passengers and four crew members who were on the twin-engine turboprop plane all tragically died on Friday (August 9).
The domestic flight took off from Cascavel Regional Airport at approximately 11:46 AM in Cascavel, Paraná, and was set to land at São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo.
But just under two hours into the journey, the aircraft crashed into a gated community in the city of Vinhedo sometime after 1:21 PM.
Distressing footage of the moments before the fatal impact was shared on social media, showing the plane spinning out of control before rapidly descending and crashing behind a cluster of trees close to houses.
"The company regrets to inform that all 61 people on board flight 2283 died at the site," Voepass said in a statement. "At this time, Voepass is prioritising provision of unrestricted assistance to the victims' families and effectively collaborating with authorities to determine the causes of the accident," they added.
The aircraft did not land on any residences, and no one on the ground was injured, officials confirmed, and initially, 61 victims were reported which was subsequently raised to 62 as one passenger wasn't on the flight manifest due to a tech error.
“It fell next to a house, on a lot,” Dario Pacheco, Vinhedo’s mayor, said, per the New York Times. “Just next to it, the resident said he woke up to a noise and left running, and that all the people around also left, fearing an explosion.”
According to local TV station Globo, investigators have now obtained the full transcript of the cockpit audio from the plane.
The two-hour recording captured a heartbreaking conversation the pilot, Danilo Santos Romano, and copilot Humberto de Campos Alencar e Silva, had after noticing a steep loss in altitude just one minute before the tragedy.
Silva asked Romano: "What is going on?" to which the pilot allegedly said that the plane needed "more power" to stabilize the aircraft, as cited by Daily Mail.
Another report by Globo noted that the heartwrenching recording concluded with a loud bang after the screams of the 62 people onboard were heard.
However, one thing the black box did not identify was distinctive warning noises, such as ones that would warn the crew of fire, electrical failure, or engine failure, the publication added.
First responders recovered the bodies of all 34 male passengers and 28 female passengers over the weekend, but so far, only 17 victims had been identified, including the pilot and his co-pilot.
FlightRadar24 posted on X that there was an "active warning for severe icing" between 12,000 feet and 21,000 feet in the area where the plane crashed.
AP News shared a report from Globo’s meteorological center which stated that it “confirmed the possibility of the formation of ice in the region of Vinhedo,” and local media cited analysts pointing to icing as a potential factor for the horrific tragedy.
However, Brazilian aviation expert Lito Sousa suspects that weather conditions alone might not explain what happened.
“Analyzing an air crash just with images can lead to wrong conclusions about the causes,” he said. “But we can see a plane with loss of support, no horizontal speed. In this flat spin condition, there’s no way to reclaim control of the plane."
A preliminary report on the heartbreaking incident should be released in the next few weeks.
Our thoughts continue to be with everyone who lost their loved one in this devastating crash.
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