Passenger Plane Crashes Killing 62 Onboard In São Paulo
By
OSABUOHIEN VIVIAN ROSE
A passenger plane carrying 62 people crashed on the outskirts of São Paulo on Friday noon, killing everyone on board, Brazilian officials said.
Dramatic footage from the scene showed the plane’s fall and its destroyed fuselage in flames on the ground.
“There are no survivors,” Communications director of a nearby city of Valinhos, Ana Cândida Briski said. She also added that there were no ground victims.
Flight tracking data shows that the Voepass Linhas Aéreas dropped 17,000 feet in a minute, but it is unclear what caused the twin-engine turboprop plane to fall. “There is still no confirmation of how the accident occurred or the current situation of the people on board,” according to a statement by airline Voepass.
Interrupting a speech at an afternoon naval event to address the crash, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for a minute of silence to mark the deaths of the flight’s passengers and crew.
“I would like everyone to stand up so that we can observe a minute of silence because a plane has just crashed in the city of Vinhedo, in São Paulo, with 58 passengers and 4 crew members and it appears they all died,” he said, in a video of his statement shared on X.
Social media videos of the crash showed the plane spiraling out of the sky before hitting the ground as people in the neighborhood shouted in fear. Another video showed the wreckage of the plane in flames on the ground.
The flight left Cascavel, in the Brazilian state of Parana, and was en route to Guarulhos, in São Paulo state, when it lost signal shortly before 1:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. ET), according to Flightradar24 data.
It began losing altitude a minute and a half before crashing. The plane had been cruising at 17,000 feet until 1:21 p.m. local time, when it dropped approximately 250 feet in 10 seconds. It then climbed approximately 400 feet in about eight seconds.
Eight seconds later, it lost just under 2,000 feet. Then, in approximately one minute, it began rapidly descending — roughly 17,000 feet in just one minute.
The last data transmission from the plane was at 1:22 p.m. local time.
One resident recorded video of the aftermath of a plane crashing into her neighbor’s house outside of São Paulo, saying she was eating lunch in her kitchen when she saw the plane going down.
She ducked down in terror and started praying, she said, calling it a “moment of panic” for the whole city. The private roads leading up to the properties are closed off to everyone, including residents. She said the woman told her first responders were in the area.
The crashed aircraft, registration PS-VPB, is an ATR 72-500 and has a total capacity of 74.
Flight experts speaking to CNN said ATR 72s, which are constructed by a European consortium, have being marked by problems in the past. ATR 72’s, as well as the company’s similar, but smaller ATR 42 designation, have previously been involved in a number of accidents: There have been at least 15 incidents resulting in passenger deaths involving ATR turboprops recorded across the globe.
