A Boeing 737-400F has been destroyed after it caught fire in flight and was forced to make an emergency landing in Sao Paulo. The aircraft, operated by all-cargo airline Total Linhas Aereas was operating a domestic cargo flight from Vitoria to Sao Paulo when the crew received a cargo fire warning, forcing the emergency landing.
Flight number TTL5682 departed from Vitória–Eurico de Aguiar Salles International Airport (VIX) on November 8, 2024, for a routine cargo flight to Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport (GRU), a sector length of just 453 miles (725 km). The flight was being operated by a 30.6-year-old Boeing 737-400(SF) freighter registered as PS-TLB.
According to Aviation Herald, the aircraft’s journey had been uneventful until it was on its descent towards Guarulhos Airport when the crew reported a fire in the cargo hold and declared an emergency. The aircraft was directed towards runway 28L at Guarulhos for a priority landing. However, about five minutes before landing, radio contact was lost with the pilots, although the transponder continued to work normally which transmitted the aircraft’s height and position information to the air traffic controllers at Guarulhos Airport.
Despite the fire in the hold, the crew managed a safe landing on runway 28L and stopped on the runway. Meanwhile, air traffic controllers reported seeing fire emanating from the aircraft, resulting in the crew evacuating the aircraft via ropes from the cockpit windows. Airport emergency services responded and attended the scene to extinguish the fire, which had by this time engulfed much of the aircraft’s roof structure.
According to reports, the aircraft was eventually removed from the runway at around 08:00 on the morning of November 9, 2024. This action occurred once all the remaining cargo had been removed from the aircraft. Pictures posted on social media show that the aircraft received substantial damage to much of its fuselage and is likely to be written off as uneconomic to repair by its insurers.
According to data from ch-aviation, the aircraft involved in the incident first flew in April 1994 and was delivered to Turkish Airlines as TC-JEK as a passenger variant of the 737-400. Having then flown for Asiana and Enter Air, the plane was converted into a freighter in 2017/18 and re-entered service with ASL Airlines Ireland in March 2018 as EI-STP. The aircraft was acquired by lessor Hamden Aviation in May 2024 and was immediately leased to Total Linhas Areas for freighter operations in Brazil.