A passenger plane with 61 people aboard crashed into a gated residential community in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state Friday, killing all aboard, the airline said.
The airline VOEPASS earlier had reported that 62 people were aboard the flight that crashed in Vinhedo, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo, but later updated the number to 61.
“The company regrets to inform that all 61 people on board flight 2283 died at the site,” VOEPASS said in a statement. “At this time, VOEPASS is prioritizing provision of unrestricted assistance to the victims’ families and effectively collaborating with authorities to determine the causes of the accident.”
At an event in southern Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked the crowd to stand and observe a minute of silence as he shared the news. He said that it appeared that all passengers and crew aboard had died.
Global Affairs Canada said it was aware of the crash and was working to determine if any Canadian citizens were affected, but told Global News it had not received any enquiries as of late Friday afternoon.
Video the Associated Press obtained from a bystander and verified shows at least two bodies strewn about flaming pieces of wreckage.
Firefighters, military police and the civil defense authority dispatched teams to the crash site in Vinhedo. Authorities sealed off the entrance to the residential area where the plane went down, as journalists outside watched as official vehicles including ambulances drove in and waited for updates.
Get daily news
“I thought it was going to fall in our yard,” a resident and witness who gave her name only as Ana Lucia told reporters near the crash site. “It was scary, but thank God there were no victims among the locals. It seems that the 62 people inside the plane were the real victims, though.”
Brazilian television network GloboNews showed aerial footage of an area on fire with smoke coming out of an obliterated plane fuselage. Additional footage on GloboNews earlier showed the plane drifting downward vertically, spiraling as it fell.
The Capela neighborhood where the plane crashed sits in a district far from the center of the prosperous city that’s home to 77,000 residents.
The plane departed from Cascavel, in the state of Parana.
France-based planemaker ATR confirmed in a statement the crash involved an ATR 72-500 twin-engine turboprop plane, and that company specialists were working with investigators.
The ATR 72 is generally used on shorter flights. The planes are built by a joint venture of Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo. Crashes involving various models of the ATR 72 have resulted in 470 deaths going back to the 1990s, according to a database of the Aviation Safety Network.
Voepass staff at the Guarulhos airport told the AP that the company is notifying victims’ family members and supporting them at a private room in the airport.
The Brazilian air force’s center for the investigation and prevention of air accidents said in a statement it has a team en route to the crash site. In a separate statement, Brazil’s Federal Police said it already had begun its investigation, and is dispatching specialists in plane crashes and the identification of disaster victims to help.
São Paulo governor Tarcísio de Freitas announced the creation of a crisis office in Vinhedo to support and coordinate the response, including the recovery and identification of the victims.
—With additional files from Global News and Reuters