'Makeup' in maintenance and omitted breakdowns were part of Voepass' routine, says Cenipa The disaster with the death of 62 people on board a Voepass plane, in 2024, in the interior of São Paulo was the outcome of a series of failures that were part of the maintenance routine of the Ribeirão Preto (SP) airline, according to the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa). They were part of what the investigators classified as the company's "culture of normalization of deviations" and practices such as: "make-up" in the deadlines for using parts to allow the release of aircraft; omission of breakdowns, which were no longer reported in logbooks; lack of conditions in secondary maintenance bases. "This normalization of deviations comes from a culture of informality in which pilots and mechanics did not report aircraft breakdowns in the logbook so that the aircraft could fly the following day (...) There were services in which mechanic assistants performed without the supervision of mechanics or inspectors within the operating company", stated Lieutenant Colonel Paulo Mendes Fróes, Cenipa investigator. Be part of the g1 Ribeirão e Franca channel on WhatsApp Released on Thursday (23), two years after the tragedy in Vinhedo (SP), the final report on the crash pointed out failures on the part of the airline, the pilots and the supervision of the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac), in addition to indicating that the aircraft had an error in the windshield wiper that should have prevented it from flying when rain was forecast. Former Voepass gang, when the company operated in Ribeirão Preto (SP). Sergio Oliveira/EPTV In a statement, Voepass stated that the plane crash was the most serious episode in its history and highlighted that it provided support to the families of the victims from the first moment. The company also reported that it continues to cooperate transparently with the investigations. See the full note at the end of the report. MORE EXCLUSIVE - Voepass plane that crashed 1 year ago had a fault omitted in the logbook hours before taking off, says witness What flaws were highlighted in Voepass' routine By analyzing flights prior to the tragedy, inspection reports and testimonies from former employees, Cenipa concluded that the company had an organizational culture "with multiple vulnerabilities". Below, check out the main failures and deviations: 'Make-up' in maintenance deadlines MEL, an acronym in English for the minimum equipment list, is a document that allows a plane to temporarily fly with a broken item, as long as it does not affect immediate safety and is repaired within a certain period of time. Cenipa discovered that the company carried out operational tests just to declare that the system worked and to renew the repair deadline, without actually solving the problem. On August 9, the day of the tragedy, the plane was released with ten inoperative items registered with MEL, including the windshield wiper and part of the pressurization system. Cenipa releases final report on factors that led to the crash of the Voepass plane. Gabriella Ramos/g1 Furthermore, the center obtained reports of mechanics who replaced defective parts with others they knew were also failing to "reset" the MEL's time count and free the plane for the next flight or for a few more days. "What happened was that there were records in the aircraft's logbooks that indicated that an operational check had been carried out on that faulty system and that the operational check had passed. However, the next day, when the aircraft took off, we saw records of the same failure, again and again, on that aircraft", stated Fróes. Concealment of breakdowns in the Logbook By law, every failure must be noted in the Logbook, the Technical Log Book (TLB), but, according to investigators, there was a company culture of not recording breakdowns in writing. According to the report, the pilots spoke about the problems verbally to the mechanics to prevent the plane from being "on the ground", that is, unavailable for a long time. Among the omitted problems, according to the investigations, is the failure of the wing de-icing system, the so-called "airframe de-icing", confirming what a former company employee revealed exclusively to g1 in 2025, when the tragedy completed one year. According to Cenipa, the three flights that preceded the crash in Vinhedo (SP) had this system failure, but this was not reported, which would prevent it from being used in meteorological conditions for ice formation. "We had three different crews (...) carrying out procedures or failing to carry out some procedures that we had in relation to the failures." Simulation of the Voepass ATR flight that crashed in Vinhedo was presented during Cenipa's final report Reproduction/Cenipa Pressure and lack of resources The report also contains information that mechanics had few hours, usually at night, to solve complex problems before the next flight in the morning, which led to haste and superficial maintenance. "According to reports, there were cases in which working hours exceeded the expected limits, especially on occasions when the fleet was in high demand, which sometimes exposed professionals to fatigue", disclosed Cenipa, in the report. Furthermore, Cenipa pointed out that critical activities were delegated to assistants without supervision and that, in some secondary maintenance bases, in other airports outside of Ribeirão Preto, where the company was based, there was a lack of tools.