page_title: Varig Flight 254
section_title: Incident
hierarchical_section_title: Varig Flight 254 / Incident
caption_attribution_description: English: Location map of Brazil Equirectangular projection, N/S stretching 105&#160;%. Geographic limits of the map: N: 6.0° N S: 34.0° S W: 74.5° W E: 32.0° W
context_page_description: Varig Flight 254 was a Boeing 737-241, c/n 21006/398, registration PP-VMK, on a scheduled passenger flight from São Paulo, Brazil, to Belém, capital city of the state of Pará in the country's North Region, on 3 September 1989. The flight had several intermediate stopovers, the last being in Marabá, Pará. Prior to takeoff from Marabá, the crew entered an incorrect heading into the flight computer, flying deep into a remote area of the Amazon jungle. Attempts to reach an alternative airport were unsuccessful, and the plane eventually ran out of fuel, making a belly landing in the jungle 1,050 mi northwest of Rio de Janeiro. Of the 54 passengers and crew, 12 passengers died and many more sustained serious injuries. The survivors were rescued two days later.
context_section_description: While First Officer Zille was making an external inspection of the aircraft, Captain Garcez consulted the flight plan for the magnetic heading to Belém; the flight plan read 0270. Garcez interpreted this as 270 degrees, but the intended meaning was 027.0 degrees. Varig's heading notation for the flight plan was changed to four digits from three while Garcez was on vacation, and it did not explicitly specify the position for the decimal point, which was implicitly located to the left of the rightmost digit. That confusion was the primary cause for the disaster, along with other minor errors. The captain therefore set the left-side Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI) to 270 degrees, i.e. a due west course. This heading is clearly inconsistent with a route from Marabá to Belém.
  After setting the HSI, Garcez programmed the aircraft performance management system (PMS) to the distance to Belém (187 nmi or 346 km or 215 mi). The flight plan indicated an altitude of 29,000 feet (8,800 m) (FL290), and a leg duration of 48 minutes. When co-captain Zille got to his seat, instead of checking his own flight plan to adjust his HSI  – as he was required to do – he only referenced the captain's indicator and set his to match it. At 17:45, flight 254 took off from Marabá, and the autopilot steered the aircraft to a heading of 270° away. When Garcez believed the aircraft to be close to the destination, he attempted to use his VHF radio to communicate with Belém Tower. Failing to do so directly, he used another Varig airliner operating flight RG266, as a radio relay to talk to Belém Airport. When Garcez managed to establish communications with Belém, he requested descent clearance, and received it. Upon performing his descent, the captain found it very odd that he could not recognize any of the characteristic geographical features of the Belém area (such as the Marajó Island and the Amazon River estuary), and even asked the Tower Controller if the city was without electricity. In 1989, Belém airport still had no radar, and so the Controller informed Flight 254 that it was the only one in its airspace, and gave it landing clearance.
  After the PMS started indicating negative distance to its destination, Captain Garcez decided to execute a 180-degree turn and locate Belém visually. He also descended the aircraft to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) and reduced its speed to 200 knots (370 km/h; 230 mph). Reluctant to use the HF radio to request help, the captain decided to take visual reference from a river he located below the plane, believing it to be the Amazon. The river was actually the Xingu, which runs chiefly south-north, while the Amazon runs west-east.
  At that time, the flight had already taken 30 minutes longer than scheduled, and the passengers were getting anxious. When First Officer Zille finally noticed their initial mistake, he and the captain decided, after checking their navigation charts, to make contact with Santarém airport, believing it to be the closest airport, and made an almost 180-degree turn, now establishing a 350 magnetic course. After some calculations, Garcez realized that the aircraft did not have the necessary fuel to reach Santarém, and he started heading south again (along the now properly identified Xingu river). Finally, he decided to contact Marabá airport again, to find his location. The radio frequency of Goiânia's locator was the same as Marabá's, and Garcez mistakenly tuned to Goiânia, located approximately 675 nmi (1,250 km; 777 mi) south of Marabá. The captain was already nervous, and he failed to notice that the tuned locator's Morse code identifier was not consistent with Marabá's beacon.
  At 20:05, Belém Center called Flight 254 again demanding a report. The captain stated that he had a 170 magnetic heading to Marabá (in reality it was Goiânia), and that he was receiving a bearing from the Carajás beacon (which actually was the Barra do Garças beacon). Garcez was perplexed when Belém informed him that the Carajás beacon had been shut down since 19:30, and the Center decided to illuminate the Carajás runway in
caption: Location of the accident and departure/destination airports
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