Early article and video

Air NZ has 29 of the ATR72-600, versus the model 500 that crashed in Brazil. The difference is 5% more power in 600, and better avionics.

Still ATR72 have a bad reputation for icing.

New York Times: What Caused a Plane to Fall From the Sky in Brazil?

Brazilian investigators on Saturday began analyzing the black boxes from a São Paulo-bound flight to try to understand why the passenger plane fell from 17,000 feet on Friday, in a crash that killed all 62 on board.

But to aviation experts around the world who watched the videos showing the 89-foot plane spinning slowly as it plummeted before crashing almost directly on its belly, the question of what had happened was simple to answer: The plane had stalled.

In other words, the plane’s wings had lost the lift needed to keep the aircraft aloft, causing it to stop flying and start falling.
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The leading crash theory so far is that the plane may have stalled partly because it suffered from severe icing, meaning ice formed on its wings or on other parts of the plane, reducing its aerodynamic abilities and increasing its weight. With such icing, a plane has to travel at faster speeds to avoid stalling, experts said.

“The way the aircraft fell, spinning out of control, is characteristic of someone who lost the functionality of the wing and the aircraft controls,” said Celso Faria de Souza, a Brazilian aeronautical engineer and forensic expert in plane crashes. “This can happen because of ice.”
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ATR-72 Loss of Control Sao Paulo Brazil

9 Aug 2024