2014 Santos Cessna Citation accident
A Cessna Citation 560 XLS+ similar to the accident aircraft
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | August 13, 2014 |
| Summary | Pilot disorientation during a missed approach in poor weather resulting in a dive into terrain |
| Site | Santos, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Passengers | 5 |
| Crew | 2 |
| Fatalities | 7 |
| Injuries (non-fatal) | 11 on the ground |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Cessna Citation 560 XLS+ |
| Operator | Af Andrade Enterprises and Holdings Ltd |
| Registration | PR-AFA |
| Flight origin | Brasilia International Airport, Brasilia |
| 1st stopover | Santos Dumont Airport, Rio de Janeiro |
| Destination | Santos Air Force Base, Santos, Brazil |
On 13 August 2014 a Cessna Citation 560 XLS+ crashed whilst carrying Brazilian Socialist Party presidential candidate Eduardo Campos. All seven people aboard the airplane were killed in the accident, which took place around 10 AM BRT while trying to land at Santos Air Force Base, near the city of Santos, São Paulo. The pilot, co-pilot, a reporter, a photographer and two of Mr. Campos' campaign aides were among the dead.
The 560XLS+ business jet took off from Santos Dumont Airport, Rio de Janeiro en route to Santos Air Force Base. Due to bad weather conditions at the destination the first landing attempt was abandoned, and contact was lost at 9:23 am local time. Around 10:00 am, the aircraft crashed into two houses and a gymnasium in Santos, breaking through the walls of several homes. Witnesses reported that the plane was on fire for a few minutes before the accident and tried to dodge the buildings.
Brazil's Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center performed the investigation into the accident. The report identified several factors that contributed to the accident.
Despite an annual maintenance inspection on 14 February 2014 which found that all maintenance was up-to-date, the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder had been inoperable since January 2013. By law, the aircraft could only fly without a functioning CVR if maintenance on it was scheduled within 15 days, or 30 in exceptional circumstances. The final report on the accident noted that the pilots' schedule complied with legal duty time and rest requirements, but that "expert examination of voice, speech and language parameters on the day of the accident...indicated...fatigue and somnolence on the part of the copilot in his communications with the ATS units."
The conditions at Santos Dumont Airport had deteriorated since the last meteorological report the pilots had received. The ceiling was 300 feet (91 m) below the safe ceiling for a circle-to-land approach, but allowed an approach using the ECHO 1 route. Despite informing air traffic control that they would use the ECHO 1 approach to Runway 35, the aircraft was far to the right of the ECHO 1 approach. After reviewing other approaches the captain had made using the flight management system on visual approaches, the investigators hypothesized that the captain was using a visual approach, aided by the FMS, with the intention of joining the ECHO 1 trajectory on final approach. The report notes that the captain used a similar approach in previous landings and that "it is possible that the captain’s experience of landing in runways of other countries with precarious infrastructure conditions, in addition to his mistaken assumption of the real meteorological conditions in the aerodrome, may have contributed to his feeling safe upon adopting such procedure." However, such an approach, which saved five minutes, was not permissible in the meteorological conditions at the time of the crash, when aircraft could only use instrument only (IFR) approaches.
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