A puzzling incident occurred in Brazil on Monday, involving an Azul Embraer E195, as reported by The Aviation Herald. The incident is now being investigated internally…
An Azul Embraer E195’s scary Sao Paulo takeoff
This happened on Monday, May 27, 2024, and involves Azul flight AD2610, scheduled to fly from Sao Paulo Congonhas (CGH) to Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont (SDU). The flight was operated by an 11-year-old Embraer E195 with the registration code PR-AXX.
The aircraft was cleared to depart runway 35L at Congonhas Airport. This runway is 6,173 feet (or 1,883 meters) long. For whatever reason, during its takeoff roll, the jet took up the entire length of the runway, and only rotated meters before the end of the runway.
The video footage is pretty dramatic, as you can see that the jet takes off at the “piano keys.” Thank goodness the plane got airborne, since the area just past the end of the runway features a major road, and is a densely populated area.
Fortunately the aircraft managed to gain altitude safely, and completed the short 41-minute flight to Rio de Janeiro. However, the incident is now being investigated internally.
What could cause an incident like this?
Before takeoff, pilots make all kinds of calculations, to determine how much runway they’ll need based on the weather conditions, the aircraft’s takeoff weight, and a variety of other factors. Suffice it to say that these calculations are supposed to lead to a larger buffer than what we see here.
As mentioned above, Azul is now investigating this incident, and we’ll see if the results are made public. It seems that a few potential causes are most likely:
- Were the takeoff calculations just not done correctly, or was there a miscommunication in the cockpit, regarding takeoff performance, and how much power had to be applied?
- Did the pilots have the correct flap setting? I see some discussions about how it looks like the flaps aren’t deployed, so if true, that would definitely impact takeoff performance (personally, I can’t quite make out whether the flaps are deployed or not, as the video isn’t that high quality)
- Did some weather conditions change at the last minute, impacting takeoff performance?
Just a few months ago we saw an incident whereby a Marathon Airlines Embraer E195 operating on behalf of Air Serbia had a runway overrun in Belgrade. In that case, the plane was taking off on a much longer runway, though stupidly the pilots decided to do a midfield takeoff, despite a warning from the air traffic controller about the runway length they’d have.
Also, I can’t help but point out that Brazil’s deadliest ever aviation accident happened on this exact runway, back in 2007, and involved TAM flight 3054. An Airbus A320 was attempting to land on the same runway, and ended up having a runway overrun, leading to nearly 200 fatalities.
Bottom line
An Azul Embraer E195 had a pretty dramatic takeoff from Sao Paulo on Monday, as the jet took up just about the entire runway. While this isn’t a terribly long runway in the first place, it’s not normal to use up the entire thing.
I’m curious what an investigation reveals regarding what happened. At least this incident had a more positive ending than some other similar incidents.
What do you make of this Azul Embraer E195 incident?
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