Brazilian airline Voepass confirmed the death of all 62 passengers and crew members on board the flight 2283 following the crash.
The Amir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, has expressed his heartfelt condolences to the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, following a devastating plane crash in São Paulo which resulted in the death of all 62 people on board.
The ATR-72 turboprop crashed around 1:30 p.m. in Vinhedo, 80 km northwest of Sao Paulo, while flying from Cascavel.
Flightradar24 tracked the plane leaving Cascavel at 11:56 local time, with the last signal received about 90 minutes later.
According to the BBC, Brazil’s civil aviation agency confirmed the plane, built in 2010, was in “good operating condition” with valid certificates, and the four crew members were fully licensed.
The bodies of most of the victims which were 34 males and 28 females, had already been moved to Sao Paulo’s police morgue for identification. The bodies of the pilot and co-pilot were identified earlier in the day, said Dario Pacheco, mayor of Vinhedo. Reported by Reuters.
Nearby resident Daniel de Lima described hearing a loud noise before looking outside his condominium in Vinhedo and seeing the plane in a horizontal spiral. “It was rotating, but it wasn’t moving forward,” he told Reuters. “Soon after, it fell out of the sky and exploded.”
City officials in Valinhos, near Vinhedo, reported that a home in the local condominium complex was damaged when the plane crashed into its backyard. Fortunately, none of the residents were injured.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva extended his condolences to the victims’ families shortly after the tragedy.
“I must be the bearer of very bad news, and I wanted all to stand up so we can take one minute of silence because a plane just fell in the town of Vinhedos in Sao Paulo … and it seems that all of them passed,” he said at an event shortly after the crash.
“So I’d like to ask for a minute of silence for the victims,” he added, as reported by Al Jazeera.