VASP Flight 168, a Boeing 727-212, serial number 21347, registered PP-SRK, was a scheduled

passenger flight An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in whi ...

from

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

Fortaleza, Brazil Fortaleza (, locally , Portuguese for ''Fortress'') is the state capital of Ceará, located in Northeastern Brazil. It belongs to the Metropolitan mesoregion of Fortaleza and microregion of Fortaleza. It is Brazil's 5th largest city and the ...

which, on June 8, 1982, crashed into terrain while descending into Fortaleza, killing all 137 people on board. The crash of Flight 168 remains the third-highest death toll of any aviation accident in Brazil after

Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Manaus, Brazil, to Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. On 29 September 2006, the Boeing 737-800 operating the flight collided with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet ...

and

TAM Airlines Flight 3054 TAM Airlines Flight 3054 (JJ3054/TAM3054) was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight of LATAM Brasil, TAM Airlines from Porto Alegre to São Paulo, Brazil. On the evening of July 17, 2007, the Airbus A320 family, Airbus A320-233 serving ...

Occupants

There are 128 passengers and 9 crew members on board flight 168. In command is Captain Fernando Antônio Vieira de Paiva, a very experienced 43-year-old pilot, with more than 15,000 hours logged in the air. He is accompanied by his first officer, 28-year-old Carlos Roberto Duarte Barbosa, who has 5,324 hours of flying experience. 31-year-old José Erimar de Freitas has almost 10 years of experience in VASP - 8 of them as an aircraft engineer. He qualified as a flight engineer in 1979 and currently has 279 hours of flying experience. Also on board is Edson Queiroz. He's a Brazilian entrepreneur, founder of one of the largest business groups in Brazil, who boarded Flight 168 at the last minute, exchanging his next-morning VARIG flight ticket for a VASP night ticket, due to an early meeting in Fortaleza.

Flight history

Flight 168's first leg was from São Paulo to

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of the same name, Brazil's List of Brazilian states by population, third-most populous state, and the List of largest citi ...

, which was completed uneventfully. The flight then departed Rio de Janeiro for Fortaleza. As the flight approached its destination, it was cleared to descend from its

cruising altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

flight level In aviation and aviation meteorology, a flight level (FL) is an aircraft's altitude at standard air pressure, expressed in hundreds of feet. The air pressure is computed assuming an International Standard Atmosphere pressure of 1013.25 h ...

330 – approximately

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value ( magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

– to . Flying at night, with the lights of the city of Fortaleza in front, the Boeing 727 descended through its clearance limit, and kept descending until it crashed into a mountainside at , killing all 137 on board.

Investigation

Investigation revealed that the captain, possibly disoriented due to bright lights from the city ahead, continued the descent well below the clearance limit, despite being warned twice by the altitude alert system, as well as by the co-pilot, of the terrain ahead. As the Boeing kept descending, it struck a wooded mountainside at and

crashed "Crashed" is the third U.S. rock single, (the fifth overall), from the band Daughtry's debut album. It was released only to U.S. rock stations on September 5, 2007. Upon its release the song got adds at those stations, along with some Alternativ ...

. From the final

cockpit voice recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has b ...

translated transcript:

F/O = First Officer
CAPT = Captain

F/O: Can you see there are some hills in front?
CAPT: What? There's what?
F/O: Some hills, isn't there?
ound of altitude alertbr /> ound of impact/blockquote>

See also
*
List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft This list of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft includes notable events that have a corresponding Wikipedia article. Entries in this list involve passenger or cargo aircraft that are operating commercially and meet this list ...
*
Sensory illusions in aviation Human senses are not naturally geared for the inflight environment. Pilots may experience disorientation and loss of perspective, creating illusions that range from false horizons to sensory conflict with instrument readings or the misjudging of ...

References

External links

Final Report
- CENIPA
Boeing 727-212A PP-SRK (in Portuguese)
– a detailed analysis and description of the accident * * {{coord, 3, 46, 52, S, 38, 52, 19, W, source:kolossus-plwiki, display=title Aviation accidents and incidents in 1982 Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Aviation accidents and incidents in Brazil 1982 in Brazil Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 727 VASP accidents and incidents June 1982 events in South America