Investigators have not yet made a statement and said it is too early to determine the cause of the crash.
62 people feared dead in passenger plane crash in Brazil
After the crash of a passenger plane with 62 passengers in Brazil, there are fears for the lives of all people. The cause of the crash is still unclear.
On Saturday, investigators tried to find out why a passenger plane with 62 people on board crashed in Brazil on Friday and all passengers died.
Regional airline Voepass, based in the state of São Paulo, said Flight 2283 was en route to São Paulo’s main international airport in Guarulhos. The flight originated in Cascavel, a Brazilian city near the country’s southern border with Paraguay and Argentina.
The airline said on Friday that there were 57 passengers and four crew members on board the plane, a twin-engine turboprop ATR-72. However, on Saturday it confirmed that there was another missing passenger on board, bringing the number of victims to 62.
Rescue workers and investigators arrived on Friday at a residential area in Vinhedo, a city northwest of São Paulo, where the plane crashed.
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Why did the plane crash in Brazil?
Investigators have not yet made a statement, saying it is too early to determine the cause of the crash. However, some experts speculate that the unusual circular motion of the plane during the crash indicates that ice had formed on the plane or that there was an engine failure.
“Ice was forecast today (at the altitudes where the plane was flying), but it was within acceptable limits,” said Marcel Moura, chief operations officer of Voepass, during a press conference.
“But the aircraft is sensitive to icing. That could be a starting point,” Moura said, adding that the aircraft’s de-icing system and all other systems had been assessed as operational before takeoff.
Brazilian aeronautical engineer and crash investigator Celso Faria de Souza told Reuters that ice formation may have been the cause of the plane’s stall and spiral motion.
However, the pilots of the plane reported neither an emergency nor adverse weather conditions, the Brazilian Air Force said in a statement. The plane flew normally until 1:21 p.m., but then stopped responding to calls and radar contact was lost at 1:22 p.m., the agency said.
The crash occurred around 1:30 p.m. local time in Vinhedo, about 80 kilometers northwest of São Paulo.
Did any residents die in the plane crash in Brazil?
A house in the residential complex was damaged when the plane crashed into the backyard, but no residents were injured, said city officials in Valinhos, near Vinhedo.
Local resident Daniel de Lima said he heard a loud noise before looking out of his Vinhedo condominium and seeing the plane circling horizontally. “It was rotating but not moving forward,” he told Reuters. “Shortly afterward, it fell from the sky and exploded.”
“I almost believe the pilot was trying to avoid a nearby, densely populated area,” de Lima said.
Mourning for victims during rescue operations
At least 31 bodies were recovered and those of the pilot and co-pilot were identified by 1 p.m. local time on Saturday, São Paulo state officials said. Among the dead were a Venezuelan man and a Portuguese woman, said state civil protection official Roberto Farina.
Relatives of the victims were brought to São Paulo to provide DNA samples to help investigators identify the remains, said Henguel Pereira, the state’s civil protection coordinator.
The aircraft’s “black box” containing flight data and audio data is being analyzed, said Marcelo Moreno, head of the Brazilian Center for the Investigation and Prevention of Aircraft Accidents (CENIPA), at a press conference in Vinhedo.
French-Italian aircraft manufacturer ATR, which is owned by Airbus and Leonardo, told Reuters on Friday that its specialists were “fully involved” in the crash investigators’ investigation into the incident.
Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, the governor of the state of São Paulo, declared three days of mourning for the victims.Contributors: Minnah Arshad, Will Carless, Eduardo Cuevas and Jonathan Limehouse, USA TODAY, And Reuters.
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