Voepass plane crash in Vinhedo: former pilot denounces failures The final report by the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa) on the crash of Voepass flight 2283, which killed 62 people in Vinhedo (SP) in 2024, revealed that the company pretended to repair planes with technical flaws to circumvent safety deadlines. This conduct, according to the Air Force body, masked the "chronic nature" of the failures and resulted in "the operation of aircraft in conditions known to be degraded, exceeding the time limits provided for in current regulations." In a statement, Voepass stated that the crew of flight 2283 was experienced and trained, stated that it followed international safety standards and stated that it continues to collaborate in a transparent manner with Cenipa's investigations. Read the full text below. The National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) highlighted that Cenipa's investigation has a preventive nature and serves to identify the factors that contributed to the accident and propose measures to increase civil aviation safety. The recommendations will be analyzed within four months. Plane wreckage in Vinhedo Miguel Schincariol/AFP How the practice worked Aviation rules allow a plane to fly temporarily with some broken equipment. These cases are included in the Minimum Equipment List (MEL), a document that defines which failures are acceptable and the maximum period for repair. READ MORE: Report could be 'historical milestone' for changes in company cultures French manufacturer changes aircraft manual after crash in Vinhedo In the case of the wing de-icing system, for example, the plane could operate for up to three days in a row with the defect. After that, repair was mandatory. Furthermore, the aircraft could not take off if ice was forecast on the route. Cenipa discovered that Voepass circumvented these rules in the following way: the defect was registered with MEL; when the deadline for repairs ended, the company recorded that the system had returned to operation, without the repair having been carried out; This made the deadline start over from scratch; when the fault reappeared on subsequent flights, it was registered as a new problem. For Brazilian Air Force (FAB) reserve pilot and colonel Enio Beal Jr., who has worked in aviation for over 40 years and is a specialist in preparing MELs, the report shows that the problem was not the lack of rules, but non-compliance with them. "I see the final report as an opportunity. Keeping your house in order is simple, low-cost and within the reach of any operator. It is enough to record every breakdown, always, and that companies have this fair culture of not punishing those who take notes", he states. According to the colonel, the MEL itself was built to allow aircraft to operate safely even in the face of specific failures. "It is very rare for a plane to take off with all items working. The Minimum Equipment List was exhaustively studied by engineers and risk analysts, who evaluate item by item what could be inoperative, under what conditions and for how long. Everything is already written down as I have to do it", he details. The report, however, does not state that this practice occurred with the items registered in the MEL of the aircraft that crashed in Vinhedo. The 10 pieces of equipment included in the ATR 72-500 control list were within the deadlines set by maintenance standards. Voepass aircraft at Leite Lopes Airport, in Ribeirão Preto (SP) Marcelo Moraes/EPTV The plane in the accident On the aircraft that crashed, one of the main problems encountered was the lack of notes. The de-icing system failed on previous trips and on the day of the accident, but these occurrences were not recorded in the logbook. Without registration, the failure would not be included in the control list. This prevented the deadline for repairs from being counted and avoided safety measures, such as changing planes or diverting from icy routes. For Beal, failing to record a defect compromises the entire safety system because it prevents pilots and maintenance teams from knowing the real history of the aircraft. "If you don't register, you hand the plane over to another crew who doesn't necessarily know what's going on. It's possible that we even forget to transmit all this information. In addition to the next crew not knowing, maintenance doesn't take notice and this isn't corrected", he highlights. In 2025, g1 revealed the report of a former employee who followed the last maintenance of the ATR 72-500. According to him, a failure in the deicing system was omitted from the logbook hours before the flight. If it had been registered, the plane would not have been able to take off for Cascavel (PR) the following morning. Last Friday (24), an unpublished audio obtained by EPTV, a TV Globo affiliate, showed a Voepass maintenance employee instructing a pilot not to record a problem identified during a flight to prevent the aircraft from being taken out of operation. "This informal process constituted a form of pressure on the PIC [pilots], with the aim of avoiding the release of discrepancies that could result in the prolonged unavailability of the aircraft while the identified flaws were corrected", Cenipa pointed out in the report. According to Beal, when this type of behavior becomes part of the routine, what the investigation called the "normalization of deviance" takes place. "The problem appears when we start to think that that mistake is something normal. If from the beginning the record is lax, if no one reports it, if the deviation has already become the rule of the house, everyone starts to act as if it were common. This is how what we call the normalization of deviation is installed. And this is much more dangerous because, many times, it does not happen out of bad intention. It happens out of habit, because the environment has created this permissive condition", emphasizes the colonel. VoePass counter at Guarulhos Airport on August 12, 2024 Fábio Santos/g1 Persistent problems The report also concluded that the