What happened
On August 30, 2012, at 19:25 UTC, a Piper PA-31T, registration PR-DGO, was conducting a private transport flight from Santos Dumont Airport (SBRJ) in Rio de Janeiro to Amaraal Aerodrome (SDAM) in Campinas, São Paulo. The aircraft was carrying one pilot and six passengers.
Upon arrival at Amarais, the aircraft landed on a runway that was officially closed under NOTAM D1873/2012. There were no injuries to the seven occupants and no damage was sustained by the aircraft. At the time of the landing, there were no active obstacles or construction works on the runway, meaning there was no immediate physical danger, though the operational status was unauthorized.
The investigation
The investigation focused on why the flight proceeded to a closed airfield. It was established that the pilot prepared the flight plan at the Santos Dumont AIS office and verbally requested information regarding NOTAMs for Amarais. The AIS operator informed the pilot that the previous runway closure had ended on August 29, 2012.
However, the investigation found that the operator may have misread the expiration date on the screen, confusing October 29, 2012, with August 29, 2012. Because the pilot did not request a printed copy of the NOTAM and relied on the verbal information provided, the error went undetected during pre-flight planning. Additionally, air traffic control services (APP-RJ and APP-SP) did not issue any alerts regarding the closed status of the destination aerodrome during the flight.