At 7:53 when the caption popped up to say the pilots have made “an incredible error” a KZfaq ad kicked in inviting me to “Visit Brazil, it’s so much more than you can ever imagine”.

I can't believe you could know your destination was North, fly directly into the setting Sun for an hour, and not realize something was wrong.

I’m Brazilian, and I’ve studied this case intensely. There’s many interviews with the copilot, and he actually wrote a book on this. The story goes that the Captain was extremely arrogant and would refuse to even listen to the FO when he was pretty sure they were going the wrong way. EDIT: things that I forgot to mention/was reminded of: 1. Zille (FO) also suggested a climb to max altitude when they realized the situation and was met with silence. Instead of climbing to 38 thousand feet, Garcez climed to 9000, if I’m not mistaken. 2. The FO didn’t copy the pilot’s heading; he selected the heading from the flight plan and the compared the pilot’s heading to his own, which matched. 3. Originally, when the airplane couldn’t talk over VHF, they didn’t use a relay - they used HF radio. This lead them to believe they were closer to Belém than they actually were. 4. At one point in the flight, Captain Garcez actually told FO Zille to stop bothering him and to keep monitoring AM radios for radio direction finding. They were just hearing static due to the distance from Belém. 5. The copilot, Zille, does criticize Captain Garcez, but most of his criticism is regarding how poor CRM was at the time. 6. When Zille realized the mistake and said it out loud to the Captain, the Captain made a “shush” sound and pointed to the cockpit recorder. The Captain realized the mistake sooner and didn’t tell it to the FO over fear of loosing his job, same reason he pointed to the recorder and told the FO to not discuss this. 7. Before this accident, FOURTEEN other pilots made the same mistake on the same route when setting the heading.

always good when the captain comes on the intercom and says "have a happy ending"

In one account of this disaster, it mentioned that even some passengers tried to point out to the captain via a flight attendant that the plane was heading west because it was flying toward the setting sun, but the captain refused to listen to them.

This man basically got on the intercom and calmly said "we're all gonna die!"

Thanks for the video, i'm brazilian! What saved the survivors' lives was a "Mateiro" (bushman), a man specialized in walking in the rainforest, he found water and then led a group until he found a clearing and the farm. In an interview, after the rescue, the bushman said: "-God put me on that plane, to take the survivors out of the forest." Please make a video about "VASP 168."

I am honestly surprised there were so many survivors.

At least he told his passengers he wishes them a good ending. This is exactly what I hope for from my pilot before crashing a plane in the jungle.

Amazing that only 12 people perished for such a rookie type error. R.I.P. to those who lost their lives.

B737 Captain here. This video is an excellent reminder of the dangers of complacency. These guys had already completed several legs that day. A grueling day of up and downs. Probably tired, ready to get there, and the last leg a simple :40 flight. Complacency. The Captain did not see the obvious, his heading bug set west when the field is obviously north, and the FO too complacent about setting his own bug, independently, as a final cross check. I've made complacent mistakes. Calling a checklist item complete, when in fact it wasn't. I learned that when you rattle off the checklist challenge and responses multiple times daily, the brain just wants to hear the familiar challenge and response patter, and one can easily say "checked" out of habit, when the item was not checked. This is complacency and takes a determined effort, especially when tired, to avoid it. I felt sick watching this.

This was one of the more gut wrenching videos i’ve seen on this channel. The hopelessness you can imagine passengers are feeling when the pilot announces the mistake… so much time between then and the crash to think about the last moments of your life… and the fact that it was also such a smooth and uneventful flight from beginning until the very last seconds. Lastly, the fact that the sun was setting on them… man… this one’s tough to watch. So sad.

How on Earth do you look at a map clearly indicating that you have to go almost straight north and set a heading that is obviously due west?!

My first flying job was in Indonesia - for the first year I would literally have a sheet of paper that amongst other info. would state the general direction of the flight, until I got to know the country. How two Brazilians didn't know that it was close to due North is unbelievable.

Flying into the setting sun.....and thinking you are going north/northeast........... fucking amazing

Good evening everyone....we are about to crash in the middle of the jungle due to my stupidity....Have a nice evening and Good luck to everyone!

This channel actually produces very high quality content and I’m really mesmerised by the effort that is put into this.. hats off to you 👏🏻

I’m amazed that you were able to retrieve 33 years-old audio because my medical records only go back 5 years! How were you able to accomplish this?

Not knowing the general direction of the destination is appalling...shows a lack of knowledge of geography of the Country. I don't care how tired I get as a pilot, I will always know that the sun sets in the West. Excellent video. Thanks.

Once again, they wanted to fly to Belem which is roughly northeast of their takeoff place, and they flew directly into the setting sun. How did they not notice this error immediately ???

I'm amazed people survived. Happy they did. What a horrible mistake and realisation it must have been. You put so much effort Into your videos. Thanks for the upload.

This channel is seriously so enthralling with the research and animation. Thank you for what you do.

A 737 pilot of an important airline like Varig does not control his position with the sun, incredible.

I saw another video about this flight (or I think it was the same flight), and after they were overdue for landing, one of the flight attendants asked the pilots about it and noticed that they were flying toward the sun when the sun should have been on their left. So one of the pilots placed a piece of paper in the window to block the sun.

I feel so bad for the ones who died. Surprised the pilots survived. Another case of poor training and execution, but it is strange they didn't see, by the placement of the sun that they were going in the wrong direction. Thank you for another great presentation.

Why do I think the only radio they were paying attention to was Brazil vs Chile?

I never heard about this accident previously. This is truly unbelievable.

Really well done video! I've met a VARIG worker who was in the company's rescue team dispatched from Rio to the crash site and he told for an hour how was their job there, as part of a crisis staff formation training. The root cause was a fail regarding the communication of the heading decimal reading changed short time before and the telex hasn't arrived to marabá station yet, so the pilots mistakely entered the heading coordinate with the old reading way, and a bad CRM did all the rest of the mess. One of the passengers was from the region and noticed something wrong while looking down from his window. He then, after the crash, led one small group for many hours through the jungle until a farm in the region, and from there they could get help and contact authorities. The pilots, despite their monumental mistake, did an outstanding job crash landing a dead jet plane into the jungle at night saving most of the lives onboard, throwing it into a tiny clearance that luckly was there and they could saw while the landing lights were working...

The survivors two days struggle after crash must be mentioned too as the rescuers knew nothing about their exact location. And one more interesting fact: over the dark rainforest noone could anticipate the moment of impact. The moments right before the crash in the complete darkness must have been terrific.

Fliying all the time with the sun in his eyes... Guess the captain believed that sun sets at N-NE or that Belem is at W of Maraba. What a genious.

I read a book about this accident and they said that a passenger, knowing that the plane was going to crash due to lack of fuel, started drinking and when the forced landing was about to happen, he didn't want to sit down and walked down the aisle of the plane drunk. On impact with trees, some passengers said he flew from the back of the plane towards the cabin, dying instantly.

You probably shouldn’t tell the passengers that you hope they have a good ending when you want them to stay calm

The only things the crew could see on the horizon were faint light spots due to distant forest burnings, and at 9.06 pm, local time, the plane crash-landed over treetops that extended over 50 m (160 ft) above ground. The deceleration due to the crash was such that passengers without fastened seatbelts were flung to the front of the airplane, and some seats detached from the floor, also racing forward. When the aircraft fell through the foliage, two thick trees tore away both wings, and caused a severe torsion of the fuselage, which contributed to more seats detaching, and to the collapsing of the false roof over the passengers' heads. After its speed slowed to about 35 kn (65 km/h), the aircraft ran for little more than 30 m (100 ft) and stopped, lying on its right side. On 5 September, two days after the crash, Alfonso Saraiva and three other survivors started walking to look for help. After about two or three hours of walking in the jungle the group found the house of the Curunaré farm, in São José do Xingu. That farm had no radio, so they were taken by car to another farm, Serrão da Prata, reaching it around 12.30. With the help of radio operator João Capanema Jr., they were able to contact Franca Airport, 400 km (220 nmi) north of São Paulo, and at 16.27, an Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante airplane from the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) dropped food packages over the wreckage. By noon the next day, on their fourth day in the jungle, all survivors had been rescued by the FAB. Forty-one survivors were rescued from the crash site by helicopter, which flew them 50 km (25 nmi) to São José do Xingu, and from there they were flown by plane to Cachimbo Airport, 300 km (160 nmi) to the northwest. They were then flown to Brasilia Base Hospital near Brasilia. www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/09/07/brazil-crash-survivors-tell-of-miracle/7eb7f8ec-99ce-4358-829d-ea084f0dc164/

The passengers probably realized before the captain that they were going the wrong way! How stressful for them!!!!

The Captain actually managed to get a signal working for rescuers by urinating on the beacons of the black boxes.

There's an extensive interview with FO Zille on KZfaq, in three parts, hosted by Lito Sousa, owner of the channel Aviões e Músicas (Planes and Songs). Obviously, in Portuguese. There, he discusses all the events leading to the disaster, how the Captain behaved, how the airline treated the captains (much better than other crew), and other topics. It's worth watching.

I'm absolutely amazed that ANYONE survived. And uncontrolled, unpowered (basically glide) straight to the ground? Wow.

There is a huge difference between flying generally in a Northerly direction with the sun setting in the west, and flying due west into the sun, they must have known the time of day, and time of sunset.They must have flown this route before as they were looking for familiar landmarks. Surprised so many survived. Thank you "Flight Channel", superb as always.

It amazes me that pilots in 1989 have no geographical knowledge or use a map to understand from where to where they are going.

"Have a great ending." What a chilling send-off.

Love how the captain takes no personal responsibility - speaks vaguely of a unfortunate things like it just happened to them instead of taking any ownership. Classic narcissist. These crashes are the absolute worst IMHO, because they were completely avoidable and ego-based. In contrast, the stories were the pilots work together with beautiful CRM in horrendous circumstances warm my heart and inspire me deeply -- like United Flight 232 (Haynes, Fitch et al) and TACA-100 (Dardano). Amazing heroes.

Fantastic simulation of the interior of a battered and old 737. Green Dot Aviation recently did this accident and had some additional details. Twice, the pilots attempted to tune their directional compass to follow the signal of commercial radio stations they knew to be in Belem and another possible landing site but due to a quirk in the ionosphere that night, the usual long range of an AM signal at night was very much longer than usual. They were, in fact, following radio signals broadcasting on the same frequencies the pilots knew and were tuning to but they were from well over the horizon greater than 1,000 km away. This led them further astray and they followed the river mistaken for the Amazon for a very long time. The tone of the Captain's announcement to the passengers was very haunting and hopeless. Also mentioned by GDA, the passengers, after the announcement, stormed the galley breaking open all of the alcohol containers drinking everything they could put their hands on. When you string all of the unfortunate circumstances and plain bad luck together, it's hard to imagine them not crashing. You can say how could they not know they were flying due west into a setting sun but, as mentioned, this route was flown like a train on rails with many stops. I'm sure the flight crew was exhausted and overwhelmed by the time they flew the last leg. Amazing so many survived.

Did the flight crew not notice that they were flying into the sunset for almost an hour?

I have listened to some first officer Zille interviews. He claims that he had not coppied the heading from captain’s instruments, he acually read the flight plan. It Was 0270, no comma, no point. Its understandable. At least 7 crew did the same mistake in the same route, due to the recent Varig’s flight plan layout. Fortunately they could find themselves. He also states he asked captain to return to Marabá, as they still had the frequency on their receivers.

Flying into a setting sun, which would be West, when your needed course is North, is all the captain or 1st officer needed to know something wasn't right. Inexcusable.

Thank you for covering one of the most horrendous days in my countrys aviation history. I am from brazil and i have been with first officer zille myself. And indeed he was at fault when copying the magnetic course from the captain at the time, but when i asked him about the sun position or rivers, he explained to me that once you are immersed in your mistake, in tunnel vision, you are hardly ever able to get out. On the other hand zille as a still new f/o back in the 80s had no way of overcoming a captain since no CRM was considered back then. Captain was very arrogant and despite zilles repeated requests to turn around, he refused to admit his error and turn around, afraid of being sacked. Zille said that he picked up the plates for belem intl, and noticed the entry to the dme arc. Thats where he realized their error. He said he said his farewells to family and asked god to greet him on the other side.

Let me just say, I LOVE the effort put into all your videos.

I wonder if Varig changed it’s company slogan to “Fly Varig, where you have an 80% chance of survival.”

When your pilot hope you have a "good ending", that's not a good sign.

Couple of real winners at the wheel

You'd hope the year's of training to reach this level you'd understand geography and the concept of bearings. It's inexcusable.

Actually surprised that anyone survived this much less a large percentage of the passengers and both captains.

Excellent video as always, though I'm surprised you didn't mention that the pilots tried to navigate the plane to their destination by tuning into local radio station frequencies, thinking that a strong signal would mean they're nearby; only to later find out after the crash that these radio station signals were simply being repeated in locations nowhere near their intended destination, resulting in them running up and down the river incessantly. Further, it's interesting to note that although the setting sun was staring them straight in the face, which should have been a big hint that they were going the wrong way after simply looking at a map of the country, which would indicate that they were going west, it should be mentioned that when this flight plan was later shown to 21 pilots from other major airlines by the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Association; reportedly no less than 15 other pilots made the same mistake this crew did with their heading. This resulted in the installation of new navigation systems in the VARIG fleet from my understanding. This was a very sad, and seemingly avoidable accident. It still amazes me that aviation monitoring and navigation systems were/are still so primitive or non-existent in many countries of the world. Not only was this accident avoidable, but so was GOL 1907; which also took place in Brazil, and also occurred partially due to the way air traffic control was handled there in the year 2006 (controlled by the military with less than adequate communication reach).

I always look forward to your videos. Always so well done

Apparently, the sun rises in the south and sets in the north, according to these pilots. The passengers had more sense of direction than the pilots.

The captain's word to the cabine was not very assuring. If I heard that I would be freaking out. 15min left...

I used to work in North Slope Alaska. Point of hire was Anchorage airport. I LOVED the 737 flight from Seattle to Anchorage… with stops in Ketchikan, Hoonah, St. Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau and finally up to Anchorage. This flight took all day, vs. 3 hours non-stop. I’d arrive in ANC around at 10:00 PM, sleep in the nursery that was off hours, and fly out at 6:00 AM the next morning. I love the puddle jumper flights. I especially enjoyed how the plane used reverse thrusters to pull back from the gates in the smaller airports.

I really like the animation of this channel. ❤ And it’s so informative, most of these cases I’ve never heard about. 😢

If I didn’t see this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. How on earth can an experienced crew make such an incredible blunder? To set your compass over 100 degrees in the other direction? Supposedly flying north at 270? It’s only through a miracle that anyone survived.

This is the craziest most shocking mess I've seen. I hope the families and survivors got paid well.

I'm no pilot, but is it crazy of me to think that flying in the direction of the setting sun is a pretty good indicator that maybe, just maybe, they weren't heading north where their destination airport was? Would it be so stinking crazy to think that?

I've heard this story already, interesting video. I love your channel. The videos are very well made, it seems i'm there when it happens. Keep up the good work.

Another fact: some passangers, who flew that percurse frequently, noticed the odd geography and inquired the crew about the disparities, but that never reached the captain. Also, the captain could use vhf radio to contact local radios in order to get the location, but he refused to do it, even after the co-pilot noticed there was something wrong, and asked him to do so. They also failed to set up a high performance configuration that wuld allow then to fly a little longer, wich could help then return to the original airport.

well here in Bazil this case is so popular great video😁

This one is bonkers.. Sort of thing I'd do... I noticed the engine graphics are particularly amazing. (Pratt & Whitney Dependable engines). I am lucky enough to have flown on an early 737 with those lovely JT8Ds from Heathrow to Rome in 1976, only my second trip by air. My first was a Vickers Viscount to Dublin.

This is just so complacent. My father was a navigator in The RAF in WW2, flying B-24 Liberators over the Atlantic Ocean looking for U-boats. He was trained to do a position check every half hour, to re-check his calculations and try to relate the estimated location with the actual location where the plane was. Not very easy when 500 miles out over the ocean. These pilots made no effort to do a position check until obviously not at Belem, despite flying mostly over rainforest which is obviously hazardous terrain in navigation terms as it has hardly any distinguishing features. If they had flown the route before then surely it would have been really really obvious to both of them that the last leg was just about due North, and not West, and so making the mistake of setting the compass to "270" instead of "027" is unreal.

How did they miss the other Airport for an emergency landing when it was close? This is not explained here

Amazing the pilot didn't connect that he was putting in a due west heading for a town that is NE of his current location.

@theflightchannel, We just had a freak Helicopter accident here in Charlotte NC. Sky-3 copter for our local WBTV news station went down off the side of Interstate 77 with a meteorologist and skycam pilot aboard - neither survived. They're saying the Pilot, Chip Tayang, realizing he was going to crash, deliberately steered into the embankment to avoid the holiday traffic on the interstate. It might be worth looking into to see if you can find any details.

Good job on telling the story and finding the actual audios but why mislead us with an image of a plane breaking apart in mid air when it actually crashed in one piece?

It's reassuring and terrifying at the same time that a number of crashes aren't caused by faulty equipment, but by human error.

There was a feeling of impending doom throughout this video

these animation videos are amazing! u do a great job

I found this one particularly fascinating. Certainly some huge and inexcusable errors made by the captain and first officer but I do think questions need to be asked like the captain missed training and no one thought that might be a problem and to make sure he got the training? seems to me if he had had the training then all this would have been prevented from the get go.

How can trained aviators fail to notice that they're flying this much of course? You know that your destination is to the north and yet you put 270 degrees in your computer without going "wait a minute... this can't be right"? What a bunch of clowns.

Parabéns pelo vídeo, muito bem editado...sucesso a este bom canal!

amazing video man keep it up

I once flew with a Unit Trainer who would get us lost often. Once they handed me the map (over the rockies) and told me finding where we were was part of my training... Once we were a flight of two in horrid weather trying to get into a Class D airport VFR...we were over the runway at one point not even knowing it was the airport... That UT got a Bronze Star at the end of their time in that Unit. Meh, sometimes its about who ya know (we flew Generals).

Goodness I love these videos, one of the best channels on all of KZfaq. While both at Boeing Research and Development and at Honda Engineering I made the same mistake as my fellow Brasilian brothers here by not using the setting sun to help and assist with basic navigation or time evaluation. "CLIMBING AWAY INTO THE LAST AFTERNOON SUN" the video states.... As I would awake at 3:15 or 4:15 AM pitch blackness to get started each morning I obviously never saw the sunrise commuting into work and would arrive home each day with the sun set quite near high noon where I would continue on with a full day ahead of me to work on my own passion projects. Brasilians possess many traits, PASSION being likely the strongest of all (ever see their crazed soccer fans? LOL.) As happened once at each employer I was exhausted upon arriving home and slept for number of hours and totally lost track of time. When I awoke quite tired and disoriented at 6 and saw the sunlight I immediately rushed into work (again, at neither place had I ever traveled to work in anything other than pitch darkness) so was freaking out I was LATE. After arrival when I finally realized it was PM not AM and incredibly relieved yet even more so EMBARRASSED. (Yeah my night owl Japanese colleagues were still there working, of course they were). This pilot from what I have read didn't want to discuss his mistake on the cockpit voice recorder for fear of losing his job. I certainly had some explaining to do as well. If only us Brasilians would take the time to look and access and figure out WAIT A MINUTE, THE SUN SETS IN THE WEST!!!! They weren't traveling North and I wasn't commuting either in the AM. How foolish we all were. I am quite certain we aren't the only three men on earth to have made that mistake. Has it ever been made by any folks in "The land of the rising sun???" Omoshiroii desu. Hahaha. Rest in peace to those twelve folks that died.

This one chilled me to my core !! The captain’s comments were the creepiest I could imagine hearing in this situation…..

I love this channel way too much

Not a very reassuring announcement to the passengers.

I definitely need to research this now. It is seemingly insane they didn't realize they were heading West, or did not ask Belem for the nearest runway. Curious if any pilots out there know if they had known of the closer runway, how would they have calculated the heading given they were lost.

Fantastic video.

Wow the 15 minutes of the video really felt like 5 minutes. great video !

I was not expecting anyone to survive this crash.

Evidently the crew did a great job of preparing for and executing the forced landing, as 42 of 54 souls on board survived a forced (crash?) landing in the jungle. They pulled their shit together pretty quick once disaster became imminent. Obviously, they should’ve pulled their shit together before they left the ground.

eu lembro desse dia, eu tinha 17 anos e meu pai tinha falado que não tinha visto o avião sair...claro, foi para outro lado...

This flight was featured on air disasters. The accident prompted Brazil and the airlines to make changes. The small airport put in a radar along with personnel to operate it. The 737s were converted to the updated direction control system with decimals. And pilots went through training that balanced technology with basic direction finding skills.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I just wanted to come on the intercom to let you all know that if you have not repented your sins and made peace with god, now is a good time to start. We'll be on the ground in about 15 minutes."

I'm surprised the flight crew couldn't tell they were heading West when the sun was literally in their eyes.

Excellent work as always. F the Wikipedia comment. Then don't watch. Read it. I love the visual. And ever since you've added audio. Even better. Really puts the human element into it

First time I recall hearing the actual transmissions from the pilot in this case, interesting.👍

I thought this was going to be one where everyone died...so having about 3/4 of people survive was a pleasant surprise.

You know what kills me about the pilots? How the hell do you not know which way north is? You've been flying for how long? You're Brazilian and still don't know the lay of the land? How do you not realize that you're not flying into the sun or that the sun isn't on your left? Maybe it's me, but in combat I never fully relied on the Blue Force Tracker or GPS. I always knew where we were, where we were going. Always had a compass and back up compass. Had a rudimentary city map and new the directions each of the major MSRs followed. I planned my route, two others on my team would verify. Everyone had a copy of it. I know flying over jungle is much harder, but ill ask again, how do you not know WTF North is? Sorry for the rant! Cheers, Doc

As has been said....how bad was the geographic knowledge of their own country? It's like flying from Heathrow to Newcastle, but setting the heading for Bristol ! That mistake was a dreadful one.

When the captain headed south, Zille thougt he had tuned a Belém broadcast station, although he could not listen to its indication, for his despair. Even Carajás NDB were not working that night, and both the Belém broadcasting and Carajás frequencies were mistaken from Goiás State and Mato Grosso state signals they could tune that evening, due to atmospherical phenomena.

That Brazil v Chile football match was about as disgraceful as this flight. Early in the second half, with Brazil leading 1-0, the Chilean keeper pretended to be hit by a firework. He rolled around on the ground and blood was streaming from him. The game was abandoned. It turned out that he cut himself with a razor blade. Brazil were awarded the match and Chile were banned from the 1994 World Cup.

If my destination was North, but I was flying towards the setting sun, that should be a hint something is very wrong, and I should be very worried.

Wouldn't a basic knowledge of Brazilian geography tell them that to go from Marabá to Belém, you do *not* fly west?