1986 Atlantic Southeast Airlines accident in Brazil
Embraer EMB 120RT Brasília and Unknown and 2 more aircraft · The 1986 Atlantic Southeast Airlines accident in Brazil occurred on 19 September 1986
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Aircraft 1 · Embraer EMB 120RT Brasília
- Aircraft type
- Embraer EMB-120
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N219AS
- Operator
- Atlantic Southeast Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (SJK)To Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
Aircraft 2 · Unknown
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- Unknown
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Aircraft 3 · Unknown
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- Unknown
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Aircraft 4 · Unknown
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- Unknown
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1986 Atlantic Southeast Airlines accident in Brazil occurred on 19 September 1986. On that day an Embraer EMB 120RT Brasília of Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) crashed, having taken off shortly before from Embraer's factory in São José dos Campos on a ferry flight to ASA's headquarters in Atlanta. The aircraft was completely destroyed in the accident, and all five occupants were killed. It was the first fatal accident of an Embraer EMB 120.
Accident sequence
On departure from São José dos Campos (SJC) the pilots were instructed to follow a heading of 010 degrees. The pilots were to pass over the SJC VOR at an altitude of 5,000 feet. A few moments after lift-off, air traffic control in São José dos Campos instructed the pilots to climb to flight level 280 and to maintain the 352-degree course of the São José dos Campos VOR. The pilots did not comply with the instruction but maintained the altitude of 5,000 feet, which went unnoticed by the Brasília area control centre. In poor visibility due to low-hanging clouds, the Embraer was flown into the flank of a cloud-shrouded mountain belonging to the Mantiqueira range of hills. The impact occurred at 5,000 feet altitude; the accident site was 700 feet below the summit. The aircraft was completely destroyed on impact, and all five occupants were killed.
Investigation and cause
Cause
In the course of the accident investigation it was established that the pilots had not planned the flight properly, even though there was a flight briefing service room at São José dos Campos Airport in which all the information required for flight planning would have been available. The fact that an altitude of 5,000 feet was maintained for too long, and thus the safe altitude in the area was not taken care of, supported this thesis, as did discrepancies in the flight plan. The crew had not responded correctly to the instructions of air traffic control in São José dos Campos; furthermore, the investigators saw strong indications that the flight was conducted under instrument meteorological conditions. There had also been no clear rule regarding the handover of responsibilities from air traffic control in São José dos Campos to the Brasília area control centre, and in addition air traffic control in São José dos Campos had not asked for acknowledgement of receipt of the radio messages sent.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall der Atlantic Southeast Airlines in Brasilien 1986” (revision 237046400, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall der Atlantic Southeast Airlines in Brasilien 1986
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 237046400 · 2023-09-05 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q116483767
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall der Atlantic Southeast Airlines in Brasilien 1986" (page 12461707, revision 237046400), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an airline in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.