Varig football-on-the-ADF crash 1989?

[stepwilk]

Lord knows this certainly belongs under the heading of "rumor," or even rumour, but I vaguely recall hearing at the time that the infamous Varig 737-into-the-Amazon crash in September 1989, after the captain mistakenly set 270 instead of 027 into the autopilot, was at least in part brought about by the fact that the crew was avidly listening to a Brazil/Chile World Cup qualifying match on the ADF and thus never noticed their totally wrong heading.

Is this buehlchit or something that's widely suspected of being true?

Stephan Wilkinson

[GBV]

Stephan,

In the official crash report, nothing was said about pilots listening to the match. The pilots, after realising the mistake, tried to tune several radio broadcasts using the ADF in an attempt to find their position. In Brazil radio stations had to say their names and location every 30 minutes, it was a regulation intended to help pilots in remote areas. One of the flight attendants opened the cockpit door and the passengers heard the match. That's why some people say the pilots got lost because they were listening to the soccer match.

The pilots were very unlucky. The Chilean goalkeeper had simulated an injury and the Chile national team decided to leave the field. All the radio dudes got too excited about it and forgot to broadcast their names and locations.

:ok:

[Blue50]

Stephan,

Another one bites the dust!

Blue

[stepwilk]

Thank you, GBV, that explains it quite well.

Hi, Mike...

[punkalouver]

Hi GBV,

Do you have access to the crash report?

Thanks.

[stepwilk]

The only one I've seen is in Portuguese, at ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 737-241 PP-VMK São José do Xingu, MT (http://www.aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19890903-0).

[GBV]

punkalouver,

Unfortunately i have it only in Portuguese. Does it help?

Cheers!:ok:

[Warmtoast]

Wikipedia has what seems to be a fairly full report of the circumstances of the accident here:
Varig Flight 254 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_254)

[DouglasBoyd]

Hi GBV,

Does the official report indicate that both Maraba and Belem were equipped at the time of the accident with VORs and NDBs?

Thanks

[broadreach]

This crash is the subject of an Air Crash Investigation show released a few weeks ago and titled "Vanishing Act". Available on YouTube.

[Vincent Opondo]

Can you please send to me the report in portuguese. I cant see it anywhere anymore