SAO PAULO: An airplane carrying 58 passengers and four crew crashed on Friday in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state, killing everyone on board, local officials said.

The aircraft, a French-made ATR 72-500 operated by the airline Voepass, was travelling from Cascavel in southern Parana state to Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos international airport when it crashed in the city of Vinhedo.

Images broadcast on local media showed a large plane nosediving at high speed, while others showed a large column of smoke rising from the crash site in what appeared to be a residential area.

“There were no survivors,” the city government in Valinhos — which was involved in the rescue and recovery operation in nearby Vinhedo — said in an email sent to AFP.

The city of Vinhedo, with about 76,000 residents, is located approximately 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo. Before an official death toll was given, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said during an event that it appeared there were no survivors.

“A plane just crashed in the city of Vinhedo in Sao Paulo, with 58 passengers and four crew members and it seems that everyone died,” Lula said in the middle of a speech in Itajai in Santa Catarina state.

In a statement, Voepass reported “an accident involving flight 2283”. “There is still no confirmation of how the accident occurred,” it said.

Sao Paulo’s fire department wrote on social network X: “Aircraft crash, 7 teams involved, so far only this information.”

Nathalie Cicari, who lives near the crash site, told CNN Brasil the impact was “terrifying”. “I was having lunch, I heard a very loud noise very close by,” she said, describing the sound as drone-like but “much louder”.

The doomed plane recorded its first flight in April 2010, according to the website planespotters.net.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2024