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Isa Soares Tonight

Passenger Plane Crash In Residential Area In Brazil. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired August 09, 2024 - 15:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:00:29]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ISA SOARES, CNN HOST: We begin with some breaking news now from Brazil and officials from Brazil civil defense say a passenger plane has crashed in a

residential area outside of Sao Paulo, in the city of Valinhos.

As you look at this video of the plane falling, bear in mind the lives on board. It crashed into several houses. You can see the residential area. It

is 62 people on board, 58 passengers and four crew members. We heard from President Lula of Brazil in the last hour or so.

Let's play this out. Is it voiced or do you need me to translate? Let's listen to this.

First, I have to be the bearer of very bad news, and I would like everyone to stand up so that we can observe a minute of silence because a plane has

just crashed in the city of Vinhedo in Sao Paulo, with 58 passengers and four crew members, and it appears they all died.

I want to ask for a minute of silence for the victims.

That was President Lula in the last 40 minutes, 45 minutes, I should say. We have still yet to hear from the airline VOEPASS. The plane is an ATR-72

flying to Sao Paulo, a flight that will normally take one-and-a-half hours.

We have a team of reporters and transportation experts trying to help us make sense of why this happened.

But first, let me go to CNN producer Marcelo Medeiros reporting for us from Atlanta.

Marcelo, what more are you learning? What are you hearing from Brazilian authorities this hour?

MARCELO MEDEIROS, CNN PRODUCER: Hi, Isa. The last thing we learned is that according to the city of Valinhos, is a city very close there, who is

helping with the search and rescue operations? Older passengers, they confirm that everyone who was inside the plane has -- everyone has died,

but we do not have information yet about the ones who were inside the houses because as you said, it is a residential area and we are not sure

yet if there is any fatal victim among the people who live in their area, but at least the city of Valinhos, they confirmed that everyone who was

inside the plane are now dead, Isa.

SOARES: And what can you tell us, Marcelo, about the operation on the ground? You know, I'm seeing a statement here from the governor -- the

governor of Sao Paulo about the civil defense. What are they saying about what is happening on the ground and that area? We're looking at the

wreckage at the site. What more are you learning?

MEDEIROS: Yeah, we do have this civil defense working in the area, also, the fire department of the state of Sao Paulo, as well as this the civil

defense of the city of Valinhos, the city of Vinhedo and also the governor of the state of Parana, because the plane it was coming from, a city in the

state of Parana. It's a state next to Sao Paulo.

So then they are also helping with the search and rescue operation. And -- but for now, basically what we can see is the videos there are on social

media, videos from eyewitnesses and for what we see, really horrific images and we see fire around the houses. And so, so far, they are still trying to

figure out what happened to the plane and I also what -- the area around there is also being affected by that.

SOARES: Yeah, I'm just seeing from VOEPASS, just reading it, give me a second as I translate. The flight to call the ITR-72 flight 2283 to call

from CAC without any operational restrictions, with all its systems capable of carrying out to flights. So, very limited in terms of information.

[15:05:02]

Just very quickly, Marcelo, have we heard from VOEPASS. Have they confirmed that 60 -- 62 people have died? Do we -- have we heard that from the

airline? We've heard it from Lula, of course.

MEDEIROS: No, not yet. We do not have that confirmation. VOEPASS has not confirmed any information about the accident. What we know, another

information that we have is that the plane dropped around five kilometers in less than two minutes. So we have seen some images from social media

showing that. So it's really incredible images and but until now, VOEPASS has not confirmed or has not given us any information about that.

SOARES: Yeah. And we are waiting, of course.

Marcelo, thank you very much. Keep making those schools. We'll get back to you as soon as you have any more information on the -- on the very latest.

And were just showing the video, of course, important to remember as we look at this flight that so many families will be receiving heartbreaking

news, 62 people on board that flight, 58 passengers, four crew members making their way to Sao Paulo flight that was very -- it was made daily, in

fact, from Meinero to Sao Paulo.

Let's go now to Alan Diehl, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator and a plane crash survivor.

Welcome to the show, Alan.

Just to first of all, as we look at these images and we have other know if you can see the images that we're showing, the latest one, I've got my

producer, Sarah, just to show view as that of the wreckage is a very residential area. We know that, Alan. We know there's an ATR72.

As we look at this and I know its very early stages, what -- what do you think happened here?

ALAN DIEHL, FORMER U.S. NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION AIR SAFETY BOARD INVESTIGATOR: Well, of course, all I can do is speculate but --

SOARES: Yeah.

DIEHL: -- that's a very unusual situation. We all saw the pictures of it falling in the proverbial tailspin. That's very, very unusual for an

aircraft to park -- they say depart control flight from cruise, people talked about possible icing. Clearly, there could be major engine or

propeller failure for propeller for example, goes into reverse. You could get that sort of scenario.

I'm only speculating. I'm not suggesting I have inside information that it was a propeller problem or an icing problem, but clearly the Brazilian

authorities will put together an international team. This aircraft is manufactured by Airbus in France and Italy. And so they'll have the

manufacturer of the airframe, the engines, the electronics, and also of course, the airlines and the aviation authorities from Brazil.

Brazil is a sophisticated aviation country, so there'll be -- there'll be capable of carrying out this investigation with some help from both the

French and the American authorities.

SOARES: And what I've heard just in the last hour or so, Alan, is that the ATR72, this airplane has a bit of a checkered past. Speak to those

concerns. The criticism over this plane because as were looking at the map, it didn't have to go very far. It was going from Cascavel to Sao Paulo,

about an hour-and-a-half flight.

DIEHL: Yeah. It has had some unusual crashes. Probably the most spectacular one was that Rosemont that were earlier one of your guests was

talking about a possible icing. There was a case of one of these two aircrafts, ATR72 taking off in Asia, and it lost one of its engines and

spun in. It was very low to the ground. It didn't develop a full rotation like we see in the videos.

But yeah, it doesn't have the best safety record, but I certainly wouldn't call it a particularly dangerous aircraft. But clearly, this thing was

totally out of control. Fall turboprop aircraft, not the ATR72. And they're very -- the engines are very powerful. And of course, propeller settings

are very critical. So, if you have a -- I'm not suggesting that it had a propeller failure.

If you have that, you can get into that kind of spin that is obviously difficult, if not impossible, to recover from. And the fact that they fell

from 17,000 feet is very strange.

SOARES: Yeah. And, of course, our viewers will understand that, you know, this happened. We're learning of in the last hour at the stage, we are

tapping into your expertise. It is speculation. We are hearing very little so far from the sources on the ground, from government on the ground

besides saying, of course, that 62 people have died as a result of this.

Stay with us, Alan.

[15:10:00]

Let me go to Peter Goelz, the former managing director of U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

And just to you, I've heard now several theories and it's all speculation, Alan saying that that aerodynamic stall as we look at you and I were

talking earlier, we now have a new video of where it fell. This residential area and the smoke is still around that area.

Do you still believe it potentially could be aerodynamic stall caused by potentially icy weather?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it was clearly in some sort of stall. The question is what, what caused it. And I mentioned earlier the

really the cockpit voice recorder and the data recorder will tell the story and this investigation.

If it was a stall, you'll see a degrading of their air speed and you'll also hear a warning as it gets critical called the stick shaker. You know

that that sends chills through every pilot. If you're flying an aircraft, but particularly a turboprop, and you get the stick shaker, you need to

take action immediately. And the ATR72, there's about 800 of them out there, has had some issues with this.

But you know, how it got into that precarious situation we simply won't know until we get the data recorder and the voice recorder. They'll

probably be flown to France. The French and the Brazilians will download them together and we'll have a picture of the story clearly quickly.

And as you, as you're talking, Pete, I'm just showing -- just showing viewers, it looks like someone's backyard as you can see, the gates there,

we can see the wreckage of the plane. And it is a very residential areas on the outskirts of Sao Paulos. We showed viewers but this is some of part of

the area in Vinhedo, in Brazil. This is from CNN Brazil.

We've also learned, Peter, that this is from FlightRadar24, that an indication of approximate descent rate of 17,000 feet per minute.

What do you make of that when you hear that?

GOELZ: That's an aircraft simply falling like a stone out of the sky and at that rate, it's virtually impossible to recover. They -- they didn't

have enough time or enough speed to recover.

SOARES: No time and no speed although, Alan, what I've been hearing is that pilots are trained from day one about aerodynamic stall, but the rate

of which is his falling 17,000 feet per minute, that would not give you no matter what you did, you can turn that around. Would you say that? Is that

a fair assumption?

DIEHL: I agree with Peter that when you get those kind of descent -- I haven't airline pilot license. There's really very little you can do. We

saw this happen over the south Atlantic with a larger Airbus where the aircraft is simply descending so fast. First of all, it's difficult to get

aerodynamic control to recover, aerodynamic control, and you don't have much time.

You can't pull out at 500 feet above the terrain if you're falling at those speeds. So they would have had to react and get control at 10,000 feet or

thereabouts. I'm guessing. I don't know exactly, but once -- once you get situation, I guess the only real question now is how many people on the

ground, if any, were injured and killed. And that's something hasn't been revealed and --

(CROSSTALK)

SOARES: This is something that we are pressing, that's right. Yeah. And this is something that we are pressing, that we're trying to get

clarification on. We know it's a residential area. We've shown that footage.

In fact, this footage, it looks like someone's gate, someone's backyard in Vinhedo.

And we also don't know anything if there was a mayday call, right? We haven't heard any of that information. But, Peter, to you, we were talking

earlier with our correspondent about potentially ice, weather conditions being a part potentially here, hypothetically here, whether looked -- it

looked a bit sketchy, looked but from what our correspondent showed us, I mean, geologist showed us that temperatures were slightly temperatures

willow.

What do you make of that -- that theory that potentially icy weather conditions play the part here?

GOELZ: Well, as some of our earlier guests identified, the ATR, both 42 and the 72, have sent some issues with icing. And what point, the FAA

grounded the ATRs until a more robust anti ice-system was put in place.

So that will be one of the first places that investigators will look and the NTSB and other safety organizations studied how challenging it is first

to know that you're in an icy condition. And then secondly, to take the steps necessary to get out of it and to protect your aircraft and your

passengers.

We did a long study on what they called drizzle droplets, which are particularly dangerous. So this is an aviation issue that we know will be

able to tell from the data recorders whether it played a role if it didnt, then then well move on to something else.

SOARES: And Peter and Alan, do stay with me. I think it's important for you to listen to what the information we're getting right now.

Let me tell you what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing confirmed and you can give me your reaction of what this actually means. Now, the VOEPASS flight

that crashed near Vinhedo, Brazil, began losing altitude as we look at this video, a minute and a half before crashing, that's flight tracking data

from FlightRadar24. This is what it shows.

The plane had been cruising at 17,000 feet until about one 1:21 p.m. local time when it dropped approximately 250 feet in 10 seconds, and then climbed

approximately 400 feet in about eight seconds. Eight seconds later, it lost just under 2,000 feet. That an approximately one minute. It began rapidly

descending, roughly 17,000 feet, which is what were talking about in just one minute. And the last data transmission from the plane was 1:22 p.m.

So, Peter, let me go to you from what we've just outlined that the cruising 70,000 feet dropping 200 feet in ten seconds and then climbing back up,

dropping again in eight seconds. What can you dissect from that?

GOELZ: Well, it could it could be the onset of an aerodynamic stall caused by icing. They started to pull the nose up to gain some altitude, which is

not really what you ought to do in a stall. And then they -- then they fell out of the sky. But they said we can't -- we just don't have enough

information.

SOARES: Alan, your thoughts as we -- as we just try to make sense of just the spin, the tailspin, this plane, and how quickly fell out of the sky?

DIEHL: Well, I haven't seen the data on the heading. Heading.

SOARES: Yeah.

DIEHL: Obviously, as Peter pointed out, the recorders, the black boxes will tell the story once they recover them and they're highly survivable. A

crash like this -- well, they should be available even with the fire. But it could well be the icing of the horizontal stabilizer, the tail, which

could cross controllability problems. I don't know that we can eliminate a problem with the engine superpowers yet.

As Peter said, this is all very, preliminary. But yeah, when you dive in climb, that suggests that this is not simply a case of loss of power. It

would be going trade down normally, not straight down, but they would be descending.

But when they climb back up, that sounds like there's a controllability problem and icing can certainly give that to you. I've been in icing in a

light plane -- yeah, it really does affect your ability to control the aircraft and you have to keep to speed up like, like Peter said, you don't

want to pull those up if you've got icing, you want to get the speed faster than it can regain control.

SOARES: Absolutely terrifying, of course, as we just use it, as, you know, as I read out that statement, that the information how quickly that drop

was for those 62 people on board to have gone through that, of course. And we know from President Lula and from the city hall of Vinhedo, there have

been no survivors.

Gentlemen, I appreciate you being with us.

We actually -- I was going to take a break, but these live pictures coming into us, you can see someone's backyard that someone's garden there, and

that is the wreckage -- part of the wreckage of that plane.

Peter, if you can see this, anything, can you -- what can you see just from -- I'm just trying to look very closely at, what can you tell from this? I

mean, it looks -- I saw another angle of it.

[15:20:03]

You can see one of the first the front of the plane is that correct? I can't see the rest of the body --

GOELZ: It looks as, though, the aircraft kind of pancaked into the ground. It didn't -- you know, there's a large piece of the forward fuselage that

that is in fact that is visible, but, you know, it's clearly a non- survivable accident. Unless there was a miracle and you pray for those on the ground as well. So, a very tragic situation.

But it will -- it will be investigated under the ICAO treaty. Brazil will take the lead. It will be solved.

SOARES: Yeah and we, of course, while we don't know at this stage, if any of those people in those residential areas if any of them lost their lives,

is still waiting. We're still trying to get information on that.

Alan Diehl, Peter Goelz, really appreciate you being with us throughout this breaking news.

We are going to take a short break. We'll see you on the other side, of course, with much more on this story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOARES: If you're just joining me, bring you up to date with the breaking news that we've been following for the past hour and a half or so.

A plane has crashed in Sao Paulo, Brazil, plane carrying -- claiming the lives, I should say, of 62 people, 58 passengers, and four crew. We heard

that in the last hour or so from President Lula Silva.

What we understand was that the aircraft, which is an ATR72 VOEPASS plane, was traveling from Cascavel going to Guarulhos, which is in Sao Paulo, I

think we had a map to show. We're looking at the most recent pictures I had had coming into CNN.

Now that flight you can see, there's about an hour and a half flight.

But we're the plane fell and it really was fall out of the sky, as spin of sorts.

[15:25:02]

We have the video to bring to our viewers show that the plane falling in a tailspin in fact. That was over residential area. You can see that.

Mary Schiavo early was telling me its like when a leaf falls and you can see that tailspin, we're seeing it there. What we don't -- we're trying to

get more information. We know that the city hall have said there are no survivors, so 62 souls in the last hour, of course, from what we

understand, 62 people have died and we're trying to get.

We're getting more information, but Julia Vargas Jones, in fact, was just telling me our reporter were just saying that we heard from the city hall

in Vinhedo, there were no victims on the ground.

So considering these images, you're looking at and that's -- I mean, that is someone's backyard. Okay. You can see the antenna there. That is

someone's backyard. We saw another video of them -- of a pool of swimming pool. It is astounding to think that no one, luckily, no victims on the

ground.

But we do have more information. We have so many questions about what exactly happened here.

Let me go to David Soucie. Chad Myers is with us here because weather potentially plays a part here.

And, David, if you're with us, as we look at these images, of course, we've got more information about the VOEPASS flight. This is what we know: plane

been cruising at 17,000 feet, David, until 1:21 p.m. local time when it dropped approximately 200 feet, 50 feet, and ten seconds, it then climbed

approximately 400 feet in about eight seconds, eight seconds later, it lost its just under 2,000 feet then an approximately one minute it began rapidly

descending roughly 17,000 feet in just one minute and they lost transmission from the plane at 1:22.

So what one minute or so from when we -- when it was cruising at 17,000 feet.

From that, David, what -- what can we learn?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, those movements of the aircraft and those speeds would definitely indicate to me that there was some type

of icing problem that was the cause. You can see that when that first initial happens, what happens is the aircraft, you think of icing is

disrupting the airflow over the wings. But in fact, it's the weight of the aircraft that changes when you have a lot of icing.

So if you've been flying all that distance and then the weight gets to a point where the aircraft simply can't carry it, that's when you get that

initial stall and then initial drop that was mentioned. And then to pull up, to go back up, it could be either some of the wing, some of the ice

broke off when that happened, and then the aircraft rows or the pilot may have reacted thinking, oh, my gosh, were dropping and then tried to react

by pulling up.

So when that happens, then you get a secondary stall. And this is where the power on stall happens. That you're trying to power, you're trying to pull

yourself out of this dissent. And when that happens, the aircraft goes into the power on stall. In other words, you don't have enough air going over

the wings to create the lift that you need. And so the engines are trying to pull the aircraft forward, but it can't.

And so that's where you start getting into situation where the aircraft begins to fall and that's that 2000 foot drop that we are talking about.

There. And that's where it becomes pretty unrecoverable.

Couple of ways to get out of that is to continue to reduce power that your nose down, and then that gets the airflow over the top of the wing.

However, if you're already at a lower altitude, you may not have enough altitude to recover in that way in addition, it takes, it may take a minute

or two for the pilot to understand what's going on, what's happened here. So that indicates to me that that's again, it's too early to tell and the

black boxes and the information that we'll get, we'll tell us what's going on here, but that would be -- it seems into indicative of an icing

condition.

SOARES: Yeah, and, I remember you were telling me earlier, David, that aerodynamic stalls is something that pilots are trained on from day one.

But given just the way how quickly this plane started descending, it's what you're saying, it's almost -- it's impossible to turn that around.

SOUCIE: Yeah, it has to be stopped ahead of time. I was just reviewing the ATR training process for icing and de-icing and its very similar to pretty

much any other aircraft. But when, you know that you're going into icing, you turn on the anti-icing systems. If the anti-icing can't keep up with it

and you see it building up on the wing. You turn on your de-icing systems, which is basically balloons on the front of the wing that expand and they

break the ice off the front of the wing and the front of the tail and the rudder and the horizontal tail surface as well. But in this case, if you

turn that on too soon, and those things inflate than that, ice and the pellet ice that's on there can -- the droplet ice can build up around that

to where it makes your de-ice system ineffective.

[15:30:05]

And so it will build up ice around that inflated balloon if you will. And then when you turn it on and off, it doesn't do anything. Its just working

underneath that ice, which allows the ice to continue to build and then at that point, you've got some real trouble on your hands with the weight and

the form at the wing as well.

SOARES: It is just heartbreaking because you're talking, David, we're listening to you. We are seeing this video from Vinhedo. It looks like

someone's backyard, like someone's gardens. You can see there, you can see the plane, the ATR72 pretty much looks pancaked. You can see the smoke

spewing there, where you can see the nose of the plane, the rest its pretty much all disintegrated.

Let me go to -- go ahead. Go ahead, David.

SOUCIE: I was just going to say it does indicate to me again that this was a flat spin, that it was about a flat spin. We knew we noted that earlier

from the sound of the engines at the time, but also this confirms that to me the debris pattern in the way that it lies and being having been on

these accidents sites as much as I have had the aircraft been in any downward position. This debris field would be much different than this.

This is a very flat, you can actually see the size of the aircraft based on what we see here on the ground. So it definitely confirms with me that it

was a flat spin of some type or a tailspin yeah.

SOARES: Yeah, let me go to Chad Myers.

And, Chad, we were talking -- we heard from David there, potentially with aerodynamics stall, the weather plays, but could potentially play a part

here.

What was -- the weather conditions like at that moment? Do we know?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: The conditions on the ground were completely fine? It was 12 degrees C, it was cloudy. Obviously, even some

showers around but there was nothing really to see whether wise at 17,000 or 14,000 feet.

So the issue was what was going on up there and the air was saturated. We're talking about the possible its ability of 100 percent relative

humidity below freezing temperatures, making snow, it could -- didn't come down. It would be rain because it would melt on the way down there. But

that's what's going on up there.

And we've talked about this word stall and I don't want people to think like your car stalls. When you stall the plane, you stall the wing, a plane

flies because the top of the wing makes the air go faster than the bottom part of the wing. And Bernoulli principle says that that will lift the

plane.

Watch this, this is with no wind going over the plight the paper at all and by blowing on the top of that paper, it lifts the paper itself the same

way, the air lifts the top of the wing to the plane. That's your vector going up.

And what you see on the ground is the fact that the plane had no forward speed. It went into the ground literally almost maybe five or ten miles per

hour, but maybe even less than that. You need the wing air to go over that arch of the top of the wing to get lift the back and that plane had no lift

whatsoever.

SOARES: Stay with us, Chad.

Let me got a statement from VOEPASS, from the airline of the ATR 72. I'm just going to read it out.

VOEPASS use all means to support those involved. There is still no confirmation of how the accident occurred or the current situation of the

people on board.

This is -- this is from VOEPASS airline. We have heard from our team that no one in that residential area, of course, of Vinhedo was killed as a

result of that. But we have heard from President Lula that appears that all 60 people on board have died.

We're going to take a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:37:13]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

If you are just joining us, let me bring you up to date with the breaking news that we've been following the last hour-and-a-half here on CNN. News

coming out of Brazil. Officials from Brazil's civil defense say a pass singer plane has crashed in a residential area outside of Sao Paulo. You

can see some of the wreckage there in Sao Paulo, in Vinhedo.

Now, this is -- you're looking at this video here, this is a plane spiraling out of control there in Vinhedo, just not very far from Sao

Paulo. This is a VOEPASS ATR 72 plane. It was carrying.

And as we look at this video, I think it's really important to bear in mind the people onboard. There were 62 people on board that flight, 58

passengers, four crew members. We heard from President Lula of Brazil in the last hour saying it looks like everyone has died. We have also learned

in the last few moments from our teams that it appears that no one has died on the ground, no residents, of course, the plane fell in a residential

area.

Let's lets get the very latest and try to make sense of what is happening in this breaking news story. You can see the video there of someone's

backyard.

And, Richard, there is -- there is information coming in. There's a lot we do not know. I think it's important to bear in mind. But just from the

videos we're looking at, what can you tell?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: What is absolutely clear? Is that this aircraft suffered the most dramatic stall that you could possibly

have because again, it's awful to be dissecting and looking at this video frame by frame by frame. But then there is no forward motion at all in that

plane.

Normally, on a plane stalls, its slows to such an extent, Chad Myers was explaining it very well a moment or two ago, essentially, you need air over

the wing, it is the air over the wing as the planes moving forward, as the thrust pushes the plane forward, that lets the plane flight creates a

vacuum and the plane flies.

Now, when you lose that so-called angle of attack, or you lose power you have too much of a -- of an incline, then the aircrafts stalls, the wings

stalls.

And there are various types. David Soucie elegantly went through the tail stall, the spiral, and all of those.

[15:40:01]

But, Isa, the fundamental point remains the plane can no longer fly. And what you see in this case is dramatically know forward movement

catastrophic stall of the aircraft, clearly, no possibility of recovery. And it -- I mean, we often say that phrase falls out the sky, but this is

absolutely what happened here.

SOARES: Yeah, yeah. And just for our viewers to get a sense of how quickly this happened, Richard, plane was cruising at 70,000 feet until about 1:21.

Then it dropped 250 feet in ten seconds. Then it climbed another 400 feet in about eight seconds, and then its eight seconds later, it lost just

under 2,000 feet heat.

QUEST: So that's what you would expect. A plane -- I mean, once a plane falls out of the sky, essentially, it's a laden weight, it's a metal weight

that's just going to fall down. But as it falls, either because of inputs from the pilots or just the natural increase of air over the wing can give

it a bit of lift again, hence the rise by 400 feet, whether that was just because it should reach enough velocity that some lift was created, or as a

result of inputs from the pilot, we won't know that until we get the black box. But once we do, that will absolutely show us what inputs took place.

Now, eventually, it overwhelms itself, because if there's no forward motion, if you can't get speed going, and there is no evidence in that

picture in that in that video of speed, I think the Brazil to Paris Air France 442 crash where the plane was coming down, but they when back up

again and then they went back down again because they were able to get some momentum going.

Isa, here, they're going to know what happened, why the plane would have had such a dramatic stall in -- I mean, I heard what Chad said about the

weather forecast. But -- and the ice and whether the icing boot on the front of the wing was working or not, but the reality is these were fine

flying conditions. These were fine flying conditions in our -- in all normal circumstances.

SOARES: Yeah, there's just so much we don't know, but what we do know and you will know this very well, Richard, as well as that. And correct me if

I'm wrong, that pilots and normally trained on aerodynamic stalls from day one. But what you are saying is possible to come out to come out of --

QUEST: This is flying 101, I mean, right at the get-go, you learn about stalls, and that is the one thing you practice. It's quite hard thing to

practice because you can't really stall the aircraft to the point of catastrophe, but absolutely.

Now, the more complex the aircraft becomes the more the different flying surfaces can cause stalls. A tail stall, a wings stall, all sorts of

reasons, a loss of power stall, and an icing stall, all these reasons. But the fundamentals remain at some point, there is not enough air over the

wing.

This is the wing, which is the wing going through and through, through the air. And there is not enough going across it to create the left, the plane

has slowed. So this is the wing comes through the air it goes across it and it normal circumstances, that's what will create lift.

If you lose that weight, that air over the wing, then you have this stalled. But, but, Isa, this is not just stall. This is -- this is this is

a dramatic, catastrophic, this plane essentially came to a stop in the air, and the reason why, it's initial approach to an airport that is well

serviced, the weather is not dreadful, and all of a sudden this happens. Now, was it mechanical? Was it structural failure? As David Soucie

suggests, was it icing to the de-icing and the anti-icing of the de-icing equipment on the wing fail. Did the pilots -- crucial moments for 442

again? Didn't pilots are crucial moments make errors of input to the controls.

We know that that can happen. But the ATR is a -- it's a tricky plane to fly, but it's a very well-known plane. It has been around for a long time.

It's tricky in certain circumstances, and in this particular case -- yes, go ahead. I'm sorry.

SOARES: No, no, no, no, no. It's -- your insight is so important right now and valuable. Richard. But the ATR 72, I wanted -- I want to try and get as

much information as I can out of you at this moment. Mary Schiavo was saying that it had a bit of a -- there was some criticism of the plane that

has a bit of a checkered past and then its not used, I don't think, it's in use in the United States.

[15:40:01]

What more do we know about the ATR 72?

QUEST: The ATR is a turboprop and it's a tricky plane to fly and it can be very unforgiving in certain situations. If you look at previous crashes of

the ATR and there have been several notable ones, the mind escapes me to bring to four, but there are numerous occasions and -- but why, but why do

airlines like it? Because of its cost basis. It is an easy plane to, if you will, cost-wise to fly because you're and once you go from ATR, you're

going to larger planes, larger planes are more expensive to buy and to run, put jet equipment on. The 717, the Airbus, the small airbus or 220, all of

these are much more expensive.

The ATR fits that niche market of these types of routes and that's why it's popular, used to be much more popular plane in Europe and it is today.

But as I say, the trickiness is that the aerodynamics of the ATR, which are well-known, but they do require certain and finessing in certain

situations, whether this was one of them. But if -- the horror -- let me just pause for a moment and think of the horror for what happened here

because from flight level 170, 17,000. How -- you've got the numbers there. How long was it from top to bottom?

SOARES: It was -- it was roughly 17,000 feet in just one minute, Richard.

QUEST: Think about it. You and I have been talking four, or five minutes.

(CROSSTALK)

SOARES: This is for those people inside -- for the 62 people on board, the pure terror, the pure terror.

Richard, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

QUEST: I can't even go there. I can't go even go there, Isa, because when you -- when you see the plane, it came to a stop in the air. Planes need

forward momentum. The forward momentum creates the lift over the wing.

This for whatever reason, it is -- it is not helpful to speculate on the reason the range of reasons. But if the black boxes are recovered, which

they will be both voice recorder and data recorder. They will have an absolute version of what took place. We will know what happened here.

SOARES: And that will be key to getting all those answers. But tonight, just heartbreak for those 62 families.

Richard, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

QUEST: You're welcome.

SOARES: Of course, we're going to stay across this breaking news. We're going to take a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:50]

SOARES: We continue to bring you up to date on the breaking news out of Brazil President Lula saying the last almost hour, 50 minutes or so, that

62 people have died on a flight from by VOEPASS ATR 72 traveling from Cascavel to Guarulhos in Sao Paulo, the flight as you can see there on your

map, is not that far is about an hour and a half flight.

The ATR plane 72, Richard was talking about a well-known plane. There has been criticism over it. But this is the moment that you see the plane

falling out literally falling out of the sky. We know it fell about 17,000 feet in just one minute. It fell in a residential area.

What we're hearing from our teams is that luckily, no one on the ground has been hurt or I should say has died a result of it. VOEPASS, the airline,

has said, VOEPASS used all means to support those involved. There is still no confirmation of how the accident could or the current situation the

people on board.

Let's get more on this. I want to bring in David Tokoph. He's president and CEO of MBA Aviation. He joins us from Arlington, Virginia.

Welcome to the show.

Just from what -- you know, what we've been showing our viewers, 17,000 feet in just one minute. That is absolutely terrifying. What can you tell

us about the ATR 72 plane? Because as I heard from some of my guests, it has a bit of a checkered past.

DAVID TOKOPH, PRESIDENT AND CEO, MBA AVIATION: Yes. So this particular variant is the 72-500, which has been around for many years and has proven

to be extremely reliable platform both in previous variants and in subsequent variants. These types of incidents are not common for the type

by any means or in aviation in general.

SOARES: And, I mean, in terms of what you think as we listen, we look at some of the footage and how quickly it really fell, dropped out of the sky.

And just -- I think we can see it, it fell up very quickly, 17,000 feet or so, tail-spinning there. We also see the footage of how it felt of the

wreckage and it almost looks like pancaked on the ground.

What do you think -- and I know it's all hypotheticals and I know we're trying to understand what's happening. We will not have the answer until we

have that black box but what do you think occurred here?

TOKOPH: Yeah, certainly, there's -- it's very early to make a determination on what would have caused this, but from the videos that

you've shown, it's clear that there was a loss of control followed by a spin either caused by a stall or loss of control that caused the aircraft

to lose so much height in such short time.

Now, the investigators are going to start by looking at a speed that and that's available to them. You know, every aircraft has a transponder. They

report to ground stations and they'll use that data, determine what contributing factors led to this event.

They'll also then gather the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the wreckage. And then they'll be able to start to piece

together what occurred and ultimately come up with -- trying to come up with the causes of the accident.

SOARES: Yeah. When you look at this and I know there's so much the investigation obviously well get to the heart of this. But, David, when you

look at this and the wreckage of course, as we see it right now on our air, they only did the nose of the plane. What questions do you have at this

moment? Because I know what we heard from our Richard Quest, you know, aerodynamic stalls is something pilots are trained on from day one. So

there are other potentially, potentially I should say other contributing factors here.

TOKOPH: Certainly, yeah, in any aviation event, there's always more than one contributing factor that leads to an accident. So what the

investigators will look to determine is what those contributing factors are.

We know that there was some rain in the area at the time of the accident, so whether icing was involved or there were engine issues that led to a

slowing of the aircraft and ultimately led it into a stall.

[15:55:08]

There's a number of things that investigators will look to piece together. What was the flight crew reaction? What was the flight crew doing? What are

the inputs that controls? So each -- each input of that the investigation will help the feed, the identification of contributing factors.

SOARES: Yeah. And, of course, it's worth bearing in mind, David, that you know, 62 people. This was 62 people on board that plane. And as it dropped

so fast, it's dropped out of the sky. It must have been absolutely terrifying for so many families. We're hoping that well have some more

clarity on this investigation.

David, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

We will continue, of course, our breaking news, but we have learned that the plane, as we heard, dropped out of the sky, 17,000 feet in just one

minute. Also hearing as a plane drop then that residential area, you can see everyone's backyard there. You can see pools that luckily, no residents

have died as a result of it.

An investigation will take place. We'll get you up-to-date with the very latest of course.

My colleague Julia Chatterley will have much more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END