What happened
On December 6, 2020, an Embraer EMB 202 performing agricultural spraying operations in Santa Vitória do Palmar, Rio Grande do Sul, experienced a loss of engine power. The aircraft, registered as PT-UXD, was engaged in applying urea to a rice field. After approximately fifteen minutes of flight, the engine lost power while the pilot was maneuvering to clear trees during a spraying pass.
Following the engine failure, the pilot attempted an emergency landing in an open field. During the landing sequence, the aircraft entered a stall at an altitude of approximately eight meters. Upon touchdown, the aircraft struck a ditch, resulting in substantial damage to the airframe. The pilot emerged from the accident uninjured.
The investigation
CENIPA's investigation established that the engine failure was caused by fuel exhaustion in the right wing tank. Prior to the eighth flight of the day, the pilot had replenished only the left wing tank to expedite the process. During the seventh flight, increased fuel consumption due to specific maneuvers led the pilot to switch the fuel selector to the right tank, which contained only 15 liters.
The investigation found that the pilot failed to switch the selector back to the left tank before departing for the eighth flight. This oversight was exacerbated by external distractions, as the pilot had been interrupted by conversations with a ground assistant and a farm employee during the refueling process. Furthermore, the investigation noted that the pilot did not jettison the 250kg of urea load from the hopper after the engine failure, which could have improved the aircraft's glide ratio.
Findings
- The pilot failed to switch the fuel selector back to the left tank prior to takeoff.
- The engine lost power because the right tank had run out of fuel.
- The pilot's reliance on intuitive flying rather than monitoring technical flight parameters contributed to the error.
- The lack of a standardized refueling supervision process at the operator allowed for the error to occur without redundancy.
- The failure to jettison the agricultural load after the engine failure hindered the emergency landing performance.
- The electrical fuel pump was not in the position prescribed by the manufacturer's service bulletin during the operation.