Causes
Upon investigation, it was concluded that the crash had been caused primarily due to negligence on part of the flight crew. Customary investigations showed that the aircraft was in perfect condition for the flight, and that its mandatory periodic inspections had been properly conducted.
It was concluded that the main factor for the accident was an error in reading the correct heading from the flight plan by the commander, compounded by the co-pilot copying the setting from the commander's panel instead of checking the flight plan.
Additionally, there were several contributing factors to the accident: the pilot did not realise he should be receiving a stronger VHF signal from Belém if he was nearing that airport, he should be receiving the local radio stations from Belém instead of other distant stations at the same frequencies, he should have checked his position and heading against the sun and geographic landmarks, the airline's support team in Belém did not take action upon realizing the aircraft arrival was delayed.
Read more about this topic: Varig Flight 254