ATR 72 Crash in Brazil

[MikeD]

Base to final spin? It’s probably game over at that altitude.

Uhhh base to final it doesn’t matter if you’re a spin expert. Probably not going to make it out of that. Your “exposure” to your students was probably a waste of time and money at that stage of training.

I believe he means teaching more of a how not to get into one, and what situations will easily lead you into one in the final turn….and how to at least get out of a stall and incipient stage, if you mess up the final turn. That is very potentially recoverable if acted upon immediately and correctly.

 

[derg]

I believe he means teaching more of a how not to get into one, and what situations will easily lead you into one in the final turn….and how to at least get out of a stall and incipient stage, if you mess up the final turn. That is very potentially recoverable if acted upon immediately and correctly.

Especially cross-control and cross-control stalls.

When that nose drops to one side, you know you want to yank that yoke in the opposite direction or go a little overly dramatic with the rudder. “Wwwwweeeeeeeee!”

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Especially cross-control and cross-control stalls.

When that nose drops to one side, you know you want to yank that yoke in the opposite direction or go a little overly dramatic with the rudder. “Wwwwweeeeeeeee!”

 

[WacoFan]

Having spun, by accident, a Seneca I, it is one of the most terrifying things feeling when none of the control are responding and all you think about hoping it doesn’t hurt for too long when you hit. I’m super glad spin training was required to becoming a CFI because otherwise, when you see your first one, it’s game over.

When I could finally reach the rudder pedals and grandpa started in earnest to teach me stuff he made me master spins prior to teaching me landings. We did stalls/spins the fourth lesson and did them more past that. He thought it should still be a PPL requirement.

 

[JustinS]

VoePass ATR 72 crashes near São Paulo | Flightradar24 Blog

A VoePass ATR 72 crashed near São Paulo on 9 August 2024. The flight was operating from Cascavel to São Paulo.

www.flightradar24.com

They are reporting that the ground speed data from ADS-B was known to be unreliable. This blog post includes the true airspeed reported presumably from ads-b. I did not know that was a thing, but then again I'd have no reason to know that it was a thing either.

Thunderstorms are bad.

ADSB is pretty detailed now. You can even see what heading and altitude are selected on the aircraft’s MCP/FCP.

 

[ChasenSFO]

Uhhh base to final it doesn’t matter if you’re a spin expert. Probably not going to make it out of that. Your “exposure” to your students was probably a waste of time and money at that stage of training.

I'm sure glad I had entered and recovered from spins early in my training so that if I ever got slow in a turn, the pucker factor was real in student pilot me. You don't have to actually go full spin aloha snackbaring your way to 72 virgins to quickly neutralize the ailerons and get speed ahead of time thanks to being prepared. Can't hurt.

 

[///AMG]

In the video shown, the spin isn’t very accelerated, but the stalled condition isn’t being corrected (if even able to be, barring some other issue).

While civvie spin training for Private and CFI was generally ok and sufficient, some of the best spinning machines were in the mil: the Cessna T-37 for the AF and the Rockwell T-2 Buckeye for the USN.

We had a pretty infamous civilian T-45 sim instructor in Meridian, who had spent many years while still in the flight suit instructing in the T-2, and previously, had been part of the initial spin testing of the F/A-18A in pax. His one liner, as he kicked off our "Out of Control Flight" ground school class, was "I've got more hours spinning jets than any of you have total". Which was probably right. He was big and loud, and still flew a civilian T-2 on the side in the airshow world. In spite of his gruff, retired Marine facade, he turned out to be awesome once you could get him to laugh a few times. Spinning multiple types of airplanes (namely the T-34 and F/A-18) was a real important foundational experience for me. From that background, it is hard to imagine how someone gets into this situation, as is any of our part 121 "upset training", but when I think about how most folks have never done a tail slide or been upside down or in a spin in a high performance aircraft (rightly so, given what most folks spent a lot of hours flying), it makes sense. The first time I ever spun a plane, I had a lot of training leading up to that, and it was essentially rote memorization and mechanics coming out. With none of that? Good luck. Fully developed spin in a transport category aircraft without a spin recovery procedure? Who knows. I can think of wildly different procedures between the F-5, F-16 and F/A-18 alone (airplanes I've either flown or heard people recite their specific recovery procedures many times in a mass brief). I think I know enough of a diverse set of "tricks" among different airplanes, that I could try to have a fighting chance, but realistically, recovery might not have been aerodynamically possible by this point.....to your point. Man that was a lot of rambling thoughts

 

[Skåning]

realistically, recovery might not have been aerodynamically possible by this point.....to your point

This. If they have a contaminated wing and have MAYBE one rotation to make the right input, odds of successful recovery are close to zero. Unless they are drawing on prior experience outside the scope of airline training.

Personally I’ve done spins in initial training and in gliders. But that was 15+ years ago. In a swept wing aircraft or with startle factor…they had no chance.

 

[DE727UPS]

I'm not sure what brought about upset training in 121. I was at UPS starting in 1990 and maybe the first time I saw the upset training was 2018 ish? I remember studying the A340 incident as part of it. The recovery is basically standard unusual attitude recovery in a Cessna you did for your IFR rating, though.

 

[drunkenbeagle]

Ice is no joke. Almost killed me when I was a freight dog in the 90s flying cancelled checks in a T-tail Piper Lance.

Scared me enough to move to Florida. Or something like that.

 

[///AMG]

This. If they have a contaminated wing and have MAYBE one rotation to make the right input, odds of successful recovery are close to zero. Unless they are drawing on prior experience outside the scope of airline training.

Personally I’ve done spins in initial training and in gliders. But that was 15+ years ago. In a swept wing aircraft or with startle factor…they had no chance.

Not swept wing in this case, but that T-tail makes me suspicious of their odds were the correction not nearly immediate like you say. Two airplanes I flew had unrecoverable spin modes, which were masked by fancy fly-by-wire software, and those spin modes involved deeply developed stalls that blanked out the tail authority. I'm sure the ATR certification required no spin recovery characteristics.

 

[BobDDuck]

I'm not sure what brought about upset training in 121. I was at UPS starting in 1990 and maybe the first time I saw the upset training was 2018 ish? I remember studying the A340 incident as part of it. The recovery is basically standard unusual attitude recovery in a Cessna you did for your IFR rating, though.

Came out of changes congress mandated in 2010 Un the aftermath of the Colgan crash. In the final FAA rule making in 2013 (I think?) airlines were given until 2020 to have all pilots go through Upset Prevention and Recovery Training.

 

[DE727UPS]

Came out of changes congress mandated in 2010 Un the aftermath of the Colgan crash. In the final FAA rule making in 2013 (I think?) airlines were given until 2020 to have all pilots go through Upset Prevention and Recovery Training.

Thanks. It was good training. Just thought it was funny how similar it was to GA IFR training on unusual attitudes. Nice to be able to do it in a simulator, though.

 

[ASpilot2be]

The one time I've experienced severe icing it built up so fast and caused so much airspeed loss I was fumbling to figure out what to do. Like driving down a snowy highway and a semi hits that ridge of slush between lanes that sprays all over your car except it freezes instantly. Airspeed just unwound like the rubber band snapped on the airspeed indicator. Fortunately it was just a cell of some sort and I came out the other side with the engines screaming a high tenor. God bless the 402 lol.

I had a severe icing experience leaving Portland in the SAAB once. We were climbing out when in a matter of seconds the airspeed dropped off. We started an immediate descent then called ATC. We landed in Redding where it was over 100 degrees and we still had ice on the plane. One of my most eye opening experiences ever.

 

[///AMG]

I had a severe icing experience leaving Portland in the SAAB once. We were climbing out when in a matter of seconds the airspeed dropped off. We started an immediate descent then called ATC. We landed in Redding where it was over 100 degrees and we still had ice on the plane. One of my most eye opening experiences ever.

Back earlier this late winter, descending through the straits from maybe 8-6k feet, I picked up more ice at once than I ever have before. A couple hours after we landed, I went back out on the ramp and took pics, and there was still a half inch of rime ice stuck to every leading edge, the wingtip pods, and the upper and lower lips of the engine intakes. I even flew at like 450-500 knots to the field when we started picking it up. I guess that might have been what prevented it from being more of an event. I think it was cold enough on the ground, that everything refroze once I parked it.

 

[Inverted]

I had a severe icing experience leaving Portland in the SAAB once. We were climbing out when in a matter of seconds the airspeed dropped off. We started an immediate descent then called ATC. We landed in Redding where it was over 100 degrees and we still had ice on the plane. One of my most eye opening experiences ever.

I ended up doing a recovery flight in a BE99 from Arcata to Redding back in my AMF days. The only time I would say I encountered severe icing. Luckily it was brief but it happened so quickly that I was absolutely hosed on options. The airplane was piled with ice and I didn't expect the weather I encountered as it was June. Not sure if it was 100 degrees in Redding when I landed but it was damn close. I pulled this off the nose AFTER I landed lol.

 

[inigo88]

For those of you who fly aircraft more susceptible to it, have you ever experienced tail icing? Given that it’s characterized by a downward pitching moment (due to loss of down force from the horizontal stabilizer) and the recovery is actually reversed from a regular stall (pull back and reduce power!), is this something you ever get to see in sim training?

Most Pilots Don't Know How To Recover From This Type Of Stall

As pilots, most of us are familiar with structural icing and the dangerous, sometimes fatal, situations it can cause. But did you know that icing on your horizontal stabilizer can result in a tailplane stall that requires opposite stall recovery techniques?

www.boldmethod.com

Even worse, the warning signs of lighter nose down pitch forces (as your horizontal stabilizer down force decreases) and buffeting in the controls may only be something you’d notice while hand flying. Makes sense why AP off and flaps up (to prevent the wing center of lift from moving further aft) are necessary checklist items.

Finally, since tailplane stalls seem to primarily affect mid size turboprops (fully trimmable stabilizers are less affected) there’s the added complication that airplanes of this size generally use mechanically or electrically signaled hydraulic flight controls. These are irreversible flight control systems and if nothing else was done your control yoke would feel like a wet noodle with no force feedback. So the engineers trick you by adding a “Q-Feel” system, which using its own pitot/static tube and dashpot uses hydraulic pressure to change the force you feel on the control column based on dynamic pressure. So that extra force you feel on the yoke when you’re going faster isn’t from the aerodynamic forces on the elevator, it’s “faked in” to trick you into not PIOing the airplane.

So back to tail icing - if you’re flying a mid range turboprop that is most susceptible it it, and it has an irreversible flight control system with hydraulic actuators and a feel spring system, it seems like it would be even more difficult to detect the warning signs of it. The usual light nose down control forces and elevator buffeting might not present themselves because the stick forces you feel are actually faked in with a spring and not based on feedback from the real elevators. I’m curious if anyone flying this class of airplane can chime in on the training and the things you watch out for that indicate tail icing?

 

[derg]

Came out of changes congress mandated in 2010 Un the aftermath of the Colgan crash. In the final FAA rule making in 2013 (I think?) airlines were given until 2020 to have all pilots go through Upset Prevention and Recovery Training.

Changed our procedures entirely. I like the new ones as it’s more relevant to the ‘what’ and the ‘how’.

 

[Apophis]

You’d think the ATR was an absolute death trap given its accident history. In truth it’s just a mid, boring, large turboprop.

Funnily enough, at my old company, we frequently flew them into places like Minot, Bismarck and Duluth during the winter. Still do in fact. Almost 3 decades of operating ATRs in these places with nary an incident.

 

[mightynimbus]

It is, however an AOA gauge would not accurately display the AOA that a contaminated airfoil is experiencing. The AOA vane is heated for one. But also would have no way of calculating the degree to which the wing is contaminated and then display that in a useful way to the crew.

Best bet would’ve been finding warmer air, if icing was in fact the genesis of this accident. I don’t know what the terrain is like in São Paulo but maybe a descent wasn’t possible. There will be a lot to learn from this accident.

In the 737 we treat wing anti-ice like boots, using it only when ice is accumulating on the leading edge. (Might be a company thing as opposed to a Boeing thing).

I have flown a bunch of turboprops over the years. The Dornier wing antiice was automatic. Turn it on and forget it.
The Saab 340a had a couple of speeds, but when you saw ice you got out of it pretty quickly because the A model didn’t have enough thrust to get out of its own way when it started icing up.
The Jetstream 31 was pretty good. Except the Kevlar straps were right behind your head so when you got into ice it always reminded me of that scene from “Airplane 2”. “The sounds you are hearing are meteors smashing against the hull of the ship”

Ice is no joke. Almost killed me when I was a freight dog in the 90s flying cancelled checks in a T-tail Piper Lance.

Checks on their way to be cancelled?