Incident Description
Following an uneventful cargo service from São Paulo-Guarulhos Airport, the crew initiated descent to Recife-Guararapes Airport. On final approach to runway 18, after the aircraft had been configured for landing, at an altitude of 500 feet, the crew was cleared to land. After touchdown, the thrust lever for the left engine was pushed to maximum takeoff power while the thrust lever for the right engine was simultaneously moved to the idle position then to reverse. This asymmetric configuration caused the aircraft to veer to the right and control was lost. The airplane veered off the runway to the right and, while contacting soft ground, the nose gear collapsed. The airplane came to rest to the right of the runway and was damaged beyond repair. All four occupants evacuated safely.
Probable Cause
The official findings listed multiple contributing factors:
- Control skills: Inadequate use of aircraft controls, particularly regarding the autothrottle mode and the non-reduction of idle power levers at touchdown, may have led to conflict between pilots. Use of only one reverse and placing the left throttle lever at maximum takeoff power resulted in asymmetric thrust that contributed to loss of control.
- Attitude: Adoption of practices different from the aircraft manual denoted noncompliance, contributing to an unexpected condition: non-automatic opening of ground spoilers and asymmetric thrust.
- Crew Resource Management: The pilot monitoring (PM) commanded the aircraft during events leading to the excursion, to the detriment of monitoring systems and assisting the pilot flying (PF). This inefficiency in harnessing human resources delayed identification of the abnormal condition.
- Organizational culture: Reliance on crew technical capacity fostered an informal environment, contributing to noncompliance with procedures. Lessons from similar accidents were apparently not taken into account at the airline level.
- Piloting judgment: The habit of not reducing throttle levers to idle at 20 feet diverged from procedures and prevented automatic ground spoiler opening.
- Perception: Failure to perceive the position of the left lever indicated lowered situational awareness; the crew apparently only realized the cause of yaw when the excursion was underway.
- Decision-making process: Inaccurate assessment of the aircraft's behavior resulted in a delay in applying the necessary power reduction procedure.