G31746 - Incident: Gol B738 at Recife on Feb 16th 2022

A Gol Transportes Aereos Boeing 737-800, registration PR-GUH performing flight G3-1746 from Brasilia,DF to Recife,PE (Brazil) with 172 passengers and 6 crew, landed on Recife's runway 18 at 23:40L (02:40Z Feb 17th) but veered right and temporarily went off the right runway edge damaging a number of right runway edge lights. The aircraft returned to the center line and taxied to the apron. There were no injuries.

Brazil's CENIPA rated the occurrence a serious incident and opened an investigation reporting the aircraft received minor damage.

On Aug 21st 2026 CENIPA released their final report concluding the probable causes of the serious incident were:

Contributing factors

- Adverse meteorological conditions – a contributor.

Although the opinion issued by CIMAER concluded that the meteorological conditions remained within the limits for visual operations and had no significant operational impact, it was determined that they did interfere with the conduct of the flight, particularly during its final moments, temporarily degrading external visual references and making directional control of the aircraft more difficult, thereby contributing to the incident under analysis.

- Handling of aircraft flight controls – a contributor.

The investigative elements analyzed indicated that, in the presence of a challenging operational scenario involving crosswind conditions, reduced visibility, nighttime operations on a wet runway, and a possible difficulty in identifying the runway centerline marking, inadequate application of flight control inputs to compensate for the crosswind and correct the aircraft's lateral drift near the touchdown point resulted in the continuation of the rightward drift, touchdown off the runway centerline, and the subsequent runway excursion.

- Airport infrastructure – undetermined.

Considering the history of nonconformities identified during the aerodrome operator certification process, particularly those related to the runway markings, it was not possible to rule out the hypothesis that, at the time of the occurrence under analysis, the visibility of the runway centerline markings was significantly degraded. This condition may have been particularly pronounced in the presence of intensified precipitation during a nighttime approach and could have contributed to the difficulty in maintaining the aircraft aligned with the runway centerline, as reported by the pilots during the initial post-occurrence interview.

- Piloting judgment – a contributor.

After evaluating the information available, it was determined that the most conservative decision from a risk management perspective would have been to discontinue the approach and conduct another landing attempt after visibility conditions over the Runway 18 threshold had improved.

Thus, the decision to continue the landing despite the sudden deterioration of meteorological conditions on short final reflected an inadequate assessment of the potential consequences of proceeding with the landing under such circumstances. This decision exposed the operation to a scenario of degraded visual perception, a factor that contributed to the difficulty in maintaining runway alignment and to the subsequent lateral deviation following touchdown.

- Perception – undetermined.

The operating environment, which involved a nighttime approach to a wet runway under visibility conditions adversely affected by the sudden intensification of precipitation over the runway, was conducive to a degradation of the pilots' situational awareness.

In this context, it is possible that the pilots, particularly the PF, experienced impairments in their ability to recognize, organize, comprehend, and project information derived from internal and external stimuli, which may have resulted in spatial disorientation, delayed perception, selective perception, or “tunnel vision,” thereby contributing to the rightward lateral deviation during the landing roll.

- Decision-making process – a contributor.

The decision to continue the landing despite the sudden reduction in visibility on short final demonstrated difficulty in perceiving, analyzing, selecting alternatives, and acting in a more conservative manner. This course of action may have been influenced by biases associated with the expectation that visual conditions would be restored rapidly and by the aircraft's proximity to the ground.

Furthermore, this decision, together with the absence of an effective response to the PM's warnings regarding the lateral drift and the continuation of a trajectory that resulted in touchdown off the runway centerline and the subsequent lateral runway excursion, characterized the decision-making process as a contributing factor to this incident.
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