What happened
On April 20, 2010, an EMB-810C operated by JM Táxi-Aéreo Ltda. was performing a flight from Estância Santa Rita to Fazenda Santo Antônio in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The flight carried the pilot and four passengers. Upon arrival at the destination, the pilot observed an area of low vegetation located perpendicular to one of the runway ends. This area featured a hangar and a parking area where another aircraft had recently landed.
Believing this strip of vegetation to be the actual runway, the pilot executed a traffic pattern and attempted a landing on a heading of 090 degrees. During the landing roll, the aircraft's landing gear struck several ditches that were hidden beneath the vegetation. This impact caused the pilot to lose control, resulting in the breakage of the right landing gear's torque link and the nose of the aircraft striking the ground. All five occupants escaped the aircraft without injury, but the aircraft sustained heavy damage to the engines, propellers, nose section, and right landing gear.
The investigation
CENIPA's investigation established that while the pilot was highly experienced and the weather conditions were favorable for VFR flight, the pilot had never previously landed at this specific location. The investigation found that the flight planning was inadequate, consisting primarily of entering coordinates into a GPS without verifying the physical characteristics or runway orientation of the destination aerodrome.
Investigators noted that the area of vegetation was visually similar to a runway, as it had defined margins and nearby infrastructure. Furthermore, the investigation highlighted a local culture where pilots relied exclusively on GPS for navigation without detailed preparation. The company's organizational structure also contributed to the risk, as it provided pilots with total autonomy without formal oversight or standardized flight planning procedures.
Findings
- Inadequate flight planning, as the pilot did not verify the destination's runway orientation or surface characteristics.
- Overconfidence in the pilot's extensive experience and the reliability of GPS technology.
- Environmental factors, specifically the presence of low vegetation that obscured ditches and a strip of land that was easily confused with the runway.
- Organizational culture within the operator, which lacked formal supervision and allowed for informal, GPS-only navigation practices.
- Lack of runway markings at the farm's access corridor, which contributed to the visual confusion.