CNN
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A passenger plane carrying 61 people crashed outside Sao Paulo on Friday afternoon, killing everyone on board, according to a statement from the airline Vupas. Dramatic footage circulating on social media showed the plane falling to the ground, its fuselage engulfed in flames.
“The company regrets to inform you that all 61 people on board flight 2283 have died at the scene,” Voipas said in a statement, downgrading the death toll from initial estimates of 62. There were 57 passengers and four crew on board, according to Voipas.
“There are no survivors,” Ana Candida Brisque, communications director for the nearby city of Valinhos, told CNN, adding that there were no casualties on the ground.
Emergency personnel are working at the scene, and the incident is under investigation.
Flight tracking data shows the ATR 72-500 twin-turboprop aircraft plunged 17,000 feet in just one minute, but it is not yet clear what caused it. According to a statement from Voepass, “There is no confirmation yet on how the incident occurred or the current status of the people on board.”
Videos on social media showed the moment the plane crashed as it flew in the sky before hitting the ground, with people screaming in fear in the neighborhood. Another video showed the wreckage of the plane burning on the ground.
Interrupting a speech he gave at an afternoon maritime event to discuss the incident, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for a minute of silence for the victims of the plane’s passengers and crew.
“I would like everyone to stand up so we can have a minute of silence because a plane just crashed in Vinhedo City… and it looks like they are all dead,” he said in a video of his statement shared on X.
As the country still reels from the tragedy, Lula da Silva later declared three days of mourning for the victims.
The plane had departed Cascavel, in the Brazilian state of Paraná, and was en route to Guarulhos, in the state of Sao Paulo, when it lost signal shortly before 1:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. EST), according to Flightradar24 data.
The plane began losing altitude a minute and a half before the crash. The plane was flying at 17,000 feet until 1:21 p.m. local time, when it dropped about 250 feet in 10 seconds. It then climbed about 400 feet in about eight seconds.
Eight seconds later, the plane lost nearly 2,000 feet. Then, within about a minute, it began a rapid descent—almost 17,000 feet in just one minute.
The last data transmission from the aircraft was at 1:22 p.m. local time.
Sao Paulo Security Minister Guilherme Deret said at a news conference that authorities had found the black box at the crash site. A medical team was on the scene and working to identify the victims, many of whom were so badly burned that they were difficult to visually identify, he added.
The teams removed the first three bodies, and in order to help identify the bodies, families were asked to share the victims’ medical documents “such as radiological, medical and/or dental examinations,” according to a statement from the São Paulo state government.
Officials said the fires sparked by the accident were under control. “The bodies of the victims are being transferred to the Legal Medical Institute of Campinas for legal action,” the Vinhedo city council said in a statement.
One resident recorded video of the aftermath of a plane crashing into her neighbor’s house outside Sao Paulo, telling CNN’s Julia Vargas Jones 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 said she crouched in terror and began praying, describing what happened as a “moment of panic” for the entire city. She added that private roads leading to the properties are now closed to everyone, including residents, and that rescue workers are in the area.
The Vinhedo city hall said in a statement on Friday that it was waiting for a Brazilian Air Force team to begin investigating the cause of the accident.
The crew did not report any emergency before the crash, Brigadier General Marcelo Moreno, who heads Brazil’s aviation accident agency, told a news conference. “At first, we had this information that there was no information about the plane, that the plane was in any kind of emergency,” he told a news conference.
According to registration data from the Brazilian Aviation Registry, the Voepass Linhas Aéreas aircraft was manufactured in 2010 and purchased by the airline in September 2022.
According to the aircraft’s registration data, it has been “prohibited from operating as an air taxi.” But it is not clear why or when this decision was made at this time.
ATR, the aircraft’s manufacturer, says it was aware of the incident and is working to support investigators.
“What we can say at this moment is that ATR has been informed of an incident in Vinhedo, Brazil involving an ATR 72-500 aircraft. Our first thoughts are with all individuals affected by this event. ATR professionals are fully committed to supporting the investigation and the customer,” the statement read.
CNN has reached out to the Brazilian aviation authority for more details on the decision.
Video of Brazilian plane falling from the sky tells the story of what happened
The ATR 72, built by a European consortium, has a checkered history, aviation experts who spoke to CNN said. The ATR 72, as well as the similar but smaller ATR 42, have been involved in a number of accidents: at least 15. resulting in the death of passengers Includes ATR turbocharged engines registered worldwide.
Some people missed the tragic flight on Friday. A man who missed the flight told Brazil’s Globo news agency that at least 10 people were waiting at the wrong gate and missed the flight before it took off.
“They told me, ‘Sir, you are not going to get on this plane because we have already exceeded the maximum boarding limit.’ I even pushed them a little bit. ‘Sir, put me on this plane, I have to leave,’ and then he said, ‘There is no way, what I can do is rebook your ticket,’” the man told Globo.
When the passengers realized they were at the wrong gate, they begged airport staff to let them on the plane, but were told they couldn’t. “My legs are shaking; God only knows how I feel. Thank God we didn’t get on that plane,” the man said after discovering the plane had crashed.
CNN’s Issa Soares, Mohamed Tawfik, Tatiana Arias, Pam Boykoff and Marcelo Medoros contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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