On 13 August 2014, a Cessna Citation Excel business jet crashed while trying to land at Santos Air Force Base, near Santos, Brazil, killing all seven people on board. Among the victims was Brazilian Socialist Party presidential candidate Eduardo Campos. Eleven people on the ground were also injured. The accident investigation concluded that spatial disorientation in poor weather and pilot fatigue likely caused a low altitude loss of control of the aircraft, leading to the impact with the ground.
Accident
The Cessna Citation 560 XLS+ had taken off from Santos Dumont Airport, Rio de Janeiro, en route to Santos Air Force Base. Due to poor weather 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 a densely-populated area, about 4.3 km southwest of the Santos Air Force Base.
Victims
Apart from Eduardo Campos, on board the aircraft were a pilot and a co-pilot, a camera operator, a photographer, one of Campos' campaign aides and one of his press aides; no-one survived. Eleven people on the ground were injured.
Investigation
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 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.
The reason for abandoning the approach is unknown. Since the meteorological conditions were close to the minimum permitted for an IFR approach, the aircraft would need to approach close to the ECHO 1 approach trajectory. On the aircraft's improper approach, the investigation noted that there was a low probability that the aircraft could have stabilized its approach in order to land safely. With a wet runway and if the aircraft crossed the threshold at the reference speed, the aircraft would have a safety margin to land on the wet runway. There was a tailwind at the time of the attempted landing. Additionally, a non-directional radio beacon (NDB) just before the runway (RR NDB) was non-functional on the day of the accident. Because the aircraft did not follow the ECHO 1 approach, it did not pass the only NDB available for determining the missed approach point, which was SAT NDB. The report concluded that "the fact that the crew did not follow the profile of the ECHO 1 [approach], along with their difficulty stabilizing the aircraft on a final approach, and the tail wind component condition may have contributed to their decision to discontinue the approach."