Varig Flight 254

Varig Flight 254

A Varig Boeing 737-200, similar to the one involved.
Accident summary
Date	3 September 1989
Summary	Major navigational error resulting in fuel exhaustion
Site	near São José do Xingu, Brazil 10°26′40.55″S 52°39′26.90″W / 10.4445972°S 52.6574722°W / -10.4445972; -52.6574722Coordinates: 10°26′40.55″S 52°39′26.90″W / 10.4445972°S 52.6574722°W / -10.4445972; -52.6574722
Passengers	48
Crew	6
Fatalities	13
Injuries (non-fatal)	34
Survivors	41
Aircraft type	Boeing 737–241
Operator	Varig
Registration	PP-VMK
Flight origin	São Paulo–Guarulhos Int'l Airport
Stopover	Uberaba Airport
1st stopover	Uberlândia Airport
2nd stopover	Goiânia–Santa Genoveva Airport
3rd stopover	Brasília International Airport
4th stopover	Imperatriz Airport
Last stopover	Marabá Airport
Destination	Belém–Val de Cães Int'l Airport

Varig Flight 254 was a Boeing 737-241, c/n 21006/398, registration PP-VMK, on a scheduled passenger flight from São Paulo, Brazil, to Belém, Pará, Brazil, with several intermediate stopovers, on 3 September 1989. Prior to takeoff from Marabá, Pará, towards the final destination, the crew entered an incorrect heading into the flight computer. Instead of flying northeast toward its destination, the plane flew due west and after some time was over a remote area of the Amazon jungle. Attempts to reach an alternative airport were unsuccessful, and the plane eventually ran out of fuel. The pilot made a belly landing in the jungle, 1,050 mi (1,690 km) northwest of Rio de Janeiro. There were 54 occupants on board—48 passengers and a crew of six; 13 passengers died, and many more sustained serious injuries. The survivors were rescued two days later.

The flight was a scheduled service from São Paulo to Belém with stopovers in Uberaba, Uberlândia, Goiânia, Brasília, Imperatriz, Marabá, and finally Belém. The São Paulo–Belém route had an approximate duration of eight hours and 20 minutes. At 9:43, flight 254 left Guarulhos International Airport, São Paulo, heading towards Belém. The flight crew consisted of 32-year-old Captain Cézar Augusto Padula Garcez, First Officer Nilson de Souza Zille, 29, and four flight attendants. The flight went smoothly through all the stops, and at 17:20, the crew was arranging the final preparations at Marabá Airport while the passengers were boarding.

While First Officer Zille was making an external inspection of the aircraft, Captain Garcez consulted the flight plan for the magnetic heading to Belém; the flight plan read 0270. Garcez interpreted this as 270 degrees, but the intended meaning was 027.0 degrees. Varig's heading notation for the flight plan was changed to four digits from three while Garcez was on vacation, and it did not explicitly specify the position for the decimal point, which was implicitly located to the left of the rightmost digit. That confusion was the primary cause for the disaster, along with other minor errors. The captain therefore set the left-side Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI) to 270 degrees, i.e. a due west course. This heading is clearly inconsistent with a route from Marabá to Belém.