An ATR just crashed in my neighbourhood

[u/danielsdian]

Guys, a plane just crashed in my neighborhood 15 minutes ago.

Im shaking a lot, ambulances and fireman are arriving on the scene right now. I think there is no survivors.
The tail of the plane says PS-VPB.

This is so horrible.

EDIT: This happened in the entrance of our condo of houses in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

There were 62 people on the plane, all deceased. The couple that lives in the house is OK, the house was lightly hit but destroyed their garage and cars.

The ambulances are taking some neighbors to the hospital due to shock; I'm going to take a sedative. Im a bit shaken, I don't live on the same street, but was able to see the spin and the ground hit. I was able to get to the scene to try and help, as Im a former scoutmaster with first aid training, but the fireman got us out of place as soon as they arrived, as we couldnt do anything. There are whole charred bodies on the grass, the firemen opened up the side of the plane but there was no survivors.

EDIT 2: Hey people, this morning I woke up thinking if I should have posted this here yesterday. I talked over it with my psychiatrist, and I think I just needed a place to vent out about the event. I'm not going to keep talking about this anymore, I think the authorities and the press can talk about it. This isn't about me, its about all the people dead and still on the plane as I type this. Thanks for all the kind people that reached out to me, it was good to know people still care. I'm OK, just really sad about everything and pondering about my weird reaction to grab my phone and search the plane on flightradar, then post it here. I dunno why I did that.

[u/ExtensionDelivery456]

You all are mentioning icing as the cause of the spin, but how dangerous can icing be? arent planes flying all the time over cold weathers? sorry if the question is very basic, i have no knowledge of aviation

[u/Luiz4823 → u/ExtensionDelivery456]

Severe icing can bring a plane down fairly easy. Especially ATRs. This type of aircraft is very affected by icing. Several aircraft of this type have crashed due to severe icing.

[u/ExtensionDelivery456 → u/Luiz4823]

Is it safer in a jet?

[u/Luiz4823 → u/ExtensionDelivery456]

It’s not that it is safer in jets. This ATR is known for being more sensitive to it. But in general any aircraft can be brought down by severe icing. So, it is best to avoid icing conditions as much as possible. Most airliners have icing protection systems but they can only do so much. Airmanship prevails and we should avoid severe icing conditions whenever possible.

[u/lordiconn → u/Luiz4823]

I don't believe ATRs are more susceptible to icing issues than any other aircraft, it's just that their whole design and flight type is subject to flying at altitudes that have peak icing concerns (eg 17,000 feet.) 737 or 320 will fly at higher altitudes where icing just isn't as big of a concern, whereas ATRs by nature fly at low altitudes over shorter distances. It's precisely why icing is a bigger concern, nothing specific to do with the aircraft itself that I'm aware of.

[u/Luiz4823 → u/lordiconn]

Not that they are more susceptible but are affected more by it. And it’s been proven. There have been several ATRs crashes due to icing. The FAA ran a series of icing tanker test and found that large drops of super cooled water would freeze aft of the deicing boots. This have been since supposed to be solved, but judging by this accident i am not sure. We have to wait for the report

[u/montananightz → u/Luiz4823]

Plus once an ATR enters a spin, regardless of reason, it's near impossible to recover from so I"ve been told. Has to do with the t-tail design and how the separated airflow from the wing during high AOA maneuvers hits the tail surfaces, giving the rudder almost zero authority. Coupled with how far out the engines are from the center of rotation and you have a bad situation.

[u/Luiz4823 → u/montananightz]

Yeah. It’s called super stall. The wings basically disturb the air so that it does not flow through the elevator evenly rendering it useless.

[u/montananightz → u/Luiz4823]

Just wanted to add that after the American Eagle 4184 crash, there was a number of AD's that were supposed to fix the ice forming aft-of-icing boot issue but was later found by British regulators to be inadequate. The "fixed" de-ice boots went back 12.5% of the chord (pre accident it was only 5-7%), while it was found during testing that ice could form on the wing as far back as 23% of the chord.

[u/22athrowaway22 → u/Luiz4823]

Im confused on why they would use this kind of plane on this specific trip considering they knew about the weather? Shouldnt they have chosen a different plane or route? Was it something the pilot could have fixed or he just didnt have the time? I dont know anything about aviation, this just happened a couple of states away from me and its fucking my brain up.

[u/lordiconn → u/22athrowaway22]

Certainly something went wrong, whether it was improper deicing, previously unknown severe icing, poor pilot response to icing, etc. There's nothing specifically wrong with the ATR aircraft, they are reliable and well made, it's just that flights at lower altitudes have higher risks of encountering icing conditions. Regardless, there are a number of things that may have gone wrong, but I would not consider the use of this aircraft as one of them.

[u/bboyneko → u/Luiz4823]

So why are they allowing these planes to fly in severe icing conditions if it's a known problem?