RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Moments before their jetliner skidded off a runway and exploded as it slammed into a building, pilots of a TAM Airlines Flight 3054 screamed “slow down!” and “turn, turn, turn,” flight recorder transcripts revealed Wednesday.
The horrific details read before a congressional commission investigating air safety suggest mechanical failure or pilot error contributed to last month’s accident in Sao Paulo, taking some heat off a government widely blamed for failing to improve the challenging runway, which pilots worldwide liken to landing on an aircraft carrier.
The pilots were unable to activate the spoilers – aerodynamic brakes on the Airbus A320’s wings – as they touched down on the short, rain-slicked runway at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport, according to the transcripts.
“Only one reverser. Spoiler nothing,” 53-year-old pilot Henrique Stephanini Di Sacco says in the transcript, giving the first indication that something is wrong.
“Look at that. Slow down, slow down,” says co-pilot Kleyber Lima, 54. Di Sacco replies: “I can’t. I can’t. Oh my God! Oh my God!”
Lima’s last words are: “Go! Go! Turn! Turn! Turn!”
The recording ends with screams and a woman’s voice, followed by an explosion.
The July 17 crash killed all 187 aboard the jetliner and 12 people on the ground in Brazil’s deadliest air disaster.
The Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo reported that according to the flight data recorder, one of the plane’s throttles was in the wrong position as it touched down, causing it to speed up instead of slow down.
The congressional commission did not review that data publicly Wednesday. But putting the throttle in the wrong position would have only complicated an already challenging landing for the pilots.
TAM previously acknowledged that one of the jet’s two thrust reversers, used to slow planes during landings, was inoperative. And speculation also has focused on the urban airport’s runway, which is so short that pilots are warned to abort landings if they make any errors while touching down.
“That is the classic aircraft accident,” said J.A. Donoghue, editor in chief of Aerosafety World. “There is not just one thing that causes it, but rather it is a cascading series of events.”
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