CNN
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A passenger plane carrying 61 people crashed on the outskirts of Sao Paulo on Friday afternoon, killing all on board, airline Voepass said in a statement. Dramatic footage circulating on social media showed the plane crashing and its fuselage destroyed in flames on the ground.
“The company regrets to report that all 61 people on board Flight 2283 died at the scene,” Voepass said in a statement, revising the death toll from initial estimates of 62 dead. According to Voepass, there were 57 passengers and 4 crew on board.
“There are no survivors,” Ana Candida Brisci, director of communications for the nearby town of Valinhos, told CNN, adding that there were no victims on the ground.
Emergency responders are at the scene of the accident and are investigating.
Flight tracking data showed the ATR 72-500, a twin-engine turboprop plane, plummeting 17,000 feet in one minute, but it’s still unclear why. According to a statement from airline Voepass, “It is not yet confirmed how the accident happened or the current condition of the people on board.
Social media videos of the crash showed the plane spinning out of the sky before crashing into the ground, leaving neighbors screaming in fear. Another video showed the wreckage of the plane burning on the ground.
Interrupting a speech at an afternoon naval event to address the crash, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for a minute’s silence to mark the apparent deaths of the plane’s passengers and crew.
I would like everyone to stand up and observe a moment of silence because a plane has crashed in the city of Vinhedo.
According to Flightradar24 data, the flight took off from Cascavel in the Brazilian state of Paraná and was en route to the city of Guarulhos in the state of São Paulo.
It started losing altitude about a minute and a half before the crash. The plane, which was flying at an altitude of 17,000 feet till 1:21 pm local time, fell about 250 feet in 10 seconds. It then climbed about 400 feet in eight seconds.
Eight seconds later, it was lost below 2,000 feet. Then, in about a minute, it began its rapid descent—about 17,000 feet in a minute.
The last data transmission from the aircraft was at 1:22pm local time.
Authorities have found a black box at the crash site, Sao Paulo’s Defense Secretary Guilherme Territ told a press conference. A medical team is in the process of identifying the victims. The remains of many of the victims were too badly burned to be visually identifiable, he said.
Officials say the fire broke out from the accident and “major hazards have already been contained; main objective,” Vinhedo City Hall said in a statement. “The bodies of the victims are being transported to the IML (Forensic Medicine Institute) in Campinas for legal proceedings,” the statement said.
São Paulo’s governor, Darcio de Freitas, has announced the formation of a crisis cabinet to deal with the plane crash in Vinhedo, in the interior of the state.
A resident videotaped the aftermath of a plane crash into her neighbor outside Sao Paulo, telling CNN’s Julia Vargas Jones that she was eating lunch in her kitchen when she saw the plane go down.
A passenger plane carrying 62 people crashed in Brazil on August 9, 2024.
She crouched down in fear and began to pray, calling it a “moment of panic” for the entire city. Private roads leading to the property are now closed to everyone, including residents, and first responders are in the area, he said.
Vinhedo City Hall, which announced three days of mourning for the victims, said in a statement on Friday that it was waiting for a Brazilian air force team to begin investigating the cause of the crash.
Brigadier Marcelo Moreno, head of Brazil’s air accidents agency CENIPA, told a press conference that the flight crew had not declared an emergency before the crash. “Initially, there was no information about the plane, that the plane was in any kind of emergency,” he told a press conference.
According to registration data from the Brazilian Aeronautical Registry, the Voepass Linhas Aéreas aircraft was manufactured in 2010 and purchased by the airline in September 2022.
According to its registration data, the aircraft was “denied operation for air taxi”. But at this time it is not clear why or when that decision was made.
ATR, the plane’s manufacturer, says it is aware of the crash and is cooperating with investigators.
“What we can say at this time is that ATR has been informed of an accident involving an ATR 72-500 in Vinhedo, Brazil. Our first thoughts are with all those affected by this incident. ATR experts are fully engaged in supporting both the investigation and the customer,” the statement said.
CNN has reached out to Brazil’s Civil Aviation Authority for more details on that commitment.
Video of Brazilian plane falling from sky, expert says what happened
Aviation experts who spoke to CNN said the ATR 72s built by the European Union are a thing of the past. ATR72s, as well as the company’s similar, but smaller ATR42 designation, have been involved in several accidents before: at least 15 have occurred. Due to this, passengers lost their lives Includes ATR turboprops registered worldwide.
Some missed the tragic flight on Friday. One person who missed the flight told Brazilian news agency Globo that at least ten people waited at the wrong gate and missed the flight before takeoff.
“They told me, sir, you are not boarding this flight because we have already exceeded the boarding limit. I put some pressure on them. “Mister, put me on this plane, I’ve got to go,’ and then he said, ‘There’s no way, what can I do, rebook your ticket,'” the man told Globo.
When they realized they were at the wrong gate, passengers begged airport staff to board the plane, but were told they couldn’t. “My legs tremble; God only knows how I feel,” the man said after discovering the plane had crashed. “Thank God we didn’t get on that plane.”
CNN’s Isa Soares, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Pam Boykoff and Marcelo Medeiros contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
