Major air crash in São Paulo
An Airbus A320 operated by TAM Airlines crashed when attempting to land on the airport of Congonhas, in São Paulo.
The airplane touched down the runway, but the pilot could not stop it. The airplane ran over the end of runway, flew over Avenue Washington Luis(one of the busiest thoroughfare in São Paulo) and crashed against a compound of hangar, wharehouse and gas station operated by TAM.
Yesterday, at the very same main runway of the Congonhas airport, another airplane faced the very same problem: the pilot could fully stop and detoured the plane to the sidetrack.
The tragedy was, unfortunately, a matter of time.
Last September, a Boeing and a jet collided when flying over the Amazon; 154 passengers in the Boeing died. The case is still under investigation, but so far both the pilots of the jet and the air controllers who were on duty were indicted.
Ever since, the air controllers have not hidden their dissatisfaction with being taken as scape goats. On several occasions, they have said that they work in conditions far from ideal, and the equipments are obsolete and subject to frequent failures. On several occasions, air controllers delayed take-offs, alleging they were just following security measures (it was common to have an air controller overlooking twenty flights simultaneously, when regulations allowed no more than fourteen); this caused delays and chaos in most airports in Brazil.
The airlines contributed to the chaos. Statistics show that, over the last few years, while the number of passengers increased, the number of airplanes and seats decreased. To meet the demand, the airlines had to keep the planes flying for longer periods, hoping from airport to aiport. A delay in any aiport (caused, for example, by bad weather conditions) would propagate to flights all along the day all across the country.
Then, came the Government. Fiscal restrictions over the past years have reduced the budget towards air traffic security (hence, the protests of the air controllers). President of the Republic, Minister of Defense (to whom the air controllers are subordinated), Commander of Air Force, Infraero, Aviation Agency, they were all uncapable of handling the situation. Everytime there was a lockout in the airports (that Brazilians referred to as “Apagão”), the Government tried to find the guilty (the air controllers, the weather, the economic growth of the country), but could never find a solution.
The airport of Congonhas, the busiest in Brazil, has two runways, a main one and a secondary one. Two months ago, the secondary runway was closed for refurbishment. About one month ago, the main runway was closed; it was reopened on May 29th. According to the design, small grooves should be cut all along the runway, to allow the rain water to flow and prevent washes. The grooving, however, according to ANAC, should be carved only within 60 days, time it takes for the concrete to cure completely. The runway was open for operation, even without grooving.
Investigations to reveal the causes of the accident have already started. According to specialists, the most probable causes are: human failure (the pilot landed too far on the runway, and then tried to pick up again); or the the lack of grooving may have caused washes which in turn caused the airplane to slide.
Updates:
- July 18th: TAM confirms the number of people in the airplane: 186 people (full capacity), being 162 passengers and 24 staff. The Fire Dept. found 14 corpses in the wreckages. If confirmed the death toll of 200, this will become the worst air accident in the History of Brazil.
- Flash animation shows how the accident happened. Spanish newspaper El Pais published an ever better animation.
- July 19th: President of TAM spoke to the press; he said that he didn’t believe that the airport was insecure; he also said that a full insurance covered lives and assets. Rumors say that, because July is a busy school break month, the air companies would have pressed Infraero to antecipate the reopening of the runways. Public attorneys are asking the Justice to shut down the entire Congonhas airport.
- President Lula manifested condolences. However, the only administrative action was to call an emergency meeting with the following: the official spokesman, the Minister Chief of Staff, the Minister of Institutional Relations and the Minister of Defense; none of them is capable of analysing causes or proposing solutions. As it’s been happening for months, the President seems to be more concerned with protecting the image of the Government than with finding solutions. None of the authorities involved with the case (and they are many: President of the Republic, Infraero, ANAC, Ministry of Defense) stepped up for an official statement; on the other hand, newspapers like O Estado de São Paulo inform that Infraero spent R$ 20 million to restore the runway and R$ 350 million to build a shopping center inside the airport.
- The television showed a video-tape by Infraero of the moments after the airplane landed. Apparently, the plane landed at the correct speed, but, for some reason, it could not slow down; the tape shows that the aircraft landed on the correct point and at the right speed, but at the end of the runway, it was moving four time faster than the one which had landed right before it; this page contains the video.
- July 20th: the Airbus which crashed had a malfunction in the reverter (a kind of jet which generates a reverse thrust and helps break the airplane) and had had problems to land in Congonhas in the eve of the accident; TAM says that the problem had been detected sooner and the reverter had been turned off. According to TAM, this was a normal procedure, which didn’t break any safety rules - the length of the runway and the size of the airplane permitted a safe landing even without the reverters. The Government, however, saw the news as an indication that TAM was the sole responsible for the tragedy; the video below shows Marco Aurélio Garcia, one of the highest advisors of President Lula’s, celebrating the news.
- Amid the profusion of opinions about the case, a consensus is being formed: the air companies have too much power (and exercize the power because the Federal Administration is inapt). Decisions like using saturated airports (like Congonhas and Santos Dumont) while leaving big airports idle (like Guarulhos and Tom Jobim), allowing very tight time schedules with intricated connections, and even the early reopening of a refurbished runway, were all taken for the benefit of the airline companies.
- July 21st. After three days of silence, President Lula spoke to the Nation. He manifested his sentiments and said that he had determined emergency actions. The most imporant actions were: ANAC should change the operating model of Congonhas (the airport should not be used for connection flights); an emergency team must look for a place in São Paulo to build a new airport. Lula said that he will wait for the investigations, before “making judgments on responsibilites”.
Caption: “Now that the door was broken once again… …We are going to think about the possibility to adopt energic solutions to provide the purchase, in the medium term, of a new locker”.
- Marco Aurélio Garcia was interviewed to talk about the infamous video-tape. He said that he felt his privacy violated for being filmed in a private situation (Note: he was filmed inside the Palácio do Planalto, seat of Government); he added that, “in case anyone felt that he had acted in a non-proper way”, he apologized.
- The Air Control Center in the Amazon area failed for a few hours in the morning of July 21st (read here). Airplanes which were heading from Brazil to USA and from USA to Brazil had to return to their original airports or divert to alternate airports.
- July 23rd. Pilots of TAM and GOL entered into agreement about not landing on Congonhas when the runway is wet; several flights were detoured to Cumbica.
- Veja magazine published an article about the Air Crash in São Paulo.
- July 24th. Yesterday was a absolutely chaotic in most Brazilian airports. Congonhas was closed because of the rain, which caused (as usual) a domino effect in several airports. In the schedule panel below, ‘Atrasado’ means Delayed; more than 60% of flights were canceled.
- Ifatca, the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers, suggested that Brazil should seek foreign assistance to handle the crisis; Brazilian authorities refused the proposal. Until today, nobody in the Government was fired because of the accident.
- July 25th. The chaos goes on. ANAC ordered the air companies to stop selling tickets for flights leaving from Congonhas (yes, they were still being sold after the accident). Cumbica, which is receiving flights that pilots refuse to land in Congonhas, is facing collapse. GOL recommended their customers to postpone their trips, if possible. A report by Folha de São Paulo (subscribers only) say that Congonhas is a gold mine for air companies: TAM saw their profits grow by 174% last year, and Gol 62% (because of this growth and because of the weakening of the dollar, these companies are ranking amongst the biggest in the World); out of the 140 commercial airports in Brazil, Congonhas alone collects 30 to 35% of total revenue.
- July 26th. Yesterday, President Lula appointed a new Minister of Defense: Nélson Jobim. According to newspapers, Jobim only accepted the job (that he had already refused in the past) after being sure that he would have a carte blanche to handle the problems. Mr. Jobim was one of the Federal Deputies who promulgated the Constitution of 1988; he was Minister of Justice during the Government of ex-Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso; and he was a Justice of the Supreme Court until 2005, when he retired.
- July 27th. The contents of the CDR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) and FDR (Flight Data Recorder) were already transcripted by the National Transportation Safety Board, in the United States. In Brazil, such devices are called Black Box (Caixa Preta), even though their true color is orange (in the photo below, the boxes are black because they were burned). The data contained in the boxes will be the most important piece of information to reveal the causes of the accident.
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- According to Veja Magazine #2019, the main cause of the accident was Human error. Veja had access to the data (which should be confidential) of the CDR and FDR; the data show that the pilots maintained the thrust controls in the wrong position. The controls are to be kept in one of three positions: thrust (when the aircraft is taking off or flying), neutral (when the reversor is not working, as it was the case) or reversal (which generates a reverse thrust, which helps stop the aircraft); according to Veja, the control of the right turbojet was set to thrust, when it should be in neutral. See this graph, by Veja.
- July 31st. This report by O Globo indicates that the tragedy sent warnings. On July 16th, eve of the accident, at least three pilots reported that the runway was slippery, and they had troubles to stop the airplane. Infraero sent a team to check out for washes in the runway, which found nothing; a few hours later, the Ocean airplane could not stop (see top of this post). On the 17th, another pilot said the runway was slippery; the runway was closed for inspection, and reopened 23 minutes later. Less than two hours later, there was the tragedy with the Airbus.
- August 1st. Newspaper Folha de São Paulo also gained access to the contents of the Cockpit Data Recorder. The article is here, but is for subscribers only.
Folha confirmed what Veja said: one of the control levers was misplaced. Instead of being in “idle”, it was in “thrust”. The computer interpreted this as if the pilots wanted to take off, and applied thrust to both jets.
Folha reproduced the dialogue between the pilot and the co-pilot:
Pilot: “One reversor only” - confirms that he knows that only one of the reversors was working.
Co-pilot: “Spoilers, nothing ..” - the spoilers, which work as aerodynamic breaks, didn’t engage, probably because the computers thought the airplane was taking off.
Pilot: “Slow down, slow down…”
Co-pilot: “I can’t, I can’t…”
Pilot: “Turn it, turn it” - trying to turn it around, which explains why the airplane deviated from the axis of the runway.
The transcription, in English, is here.
The investigations will continue; the Flight Data Records shall be examined. Airbus is now right on the line of fire, because it has been released that two very similar accidents (caused by levers in wrong position + airplane not being capable of stop) happened in the recent past, one in Philippines in 1998, and another minor one in Taipei in 2004.
- August 3rd. Several pilots put in doubt the hypothesis that a gross human error like keeping controls in the wrong position could have caused, alone, the accident. Some say that the on-board computers may have mis-interpreted the (correct) commands of the pilots. The contents of the FDR may clarify the issue.
