Brazilian authorities on Saturday recovered the bodies of around fifty of the 62 victims of the spectacular plane crash near São Paulo, in the southeast of the country, while carrying out expert assessments to determine the causes of the tragedy.
The plane crashed Friday in Vinhedo, a town of 76,000 people located some 80 kilometres northwest of São Paulo, Brazil’s economic capital.
After an impressive nosedive, shown in videos shared on social media by locals, the plane crashed in the garden of a house in a residential complex.
“So far 50 bodies have been removed from the accident site, and two have already been identified” through their fingerprints, the São Paulo state government said.
These are the remains of the pilot and co-pilot, according to the mayor of Vinhedo, Dario Pacheco.
Thirty-seven bodies have been taken to the morgue in São Paulo and investigators are working to collect genetic material from relatives of the victims to identify the remains found.
Around fifty people were still working on the ground on Saturday to recover the bodies.
“Our estimate is that by the end of the day all the bodies will have been removed,” said Carlos Palhares, director of the Federal Police’s criminology institute.
Three days of national mourning
Although no residents of the Recanto Florido residence were injured, the shock was enormous.
“It was a feeling of panic, of helplessness. […]”It’s something really very sad,” Roberta Henrique, 38, president of the neighbors’ association, told AFP.
The residents are “scared, psychologically affected,” she added, very moved.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national mourning after the “tragic accident.”
The plane, from the Franco-Italian manufacturer ATR, was carrying 58 passengers and four crew members, according to the airline Voepass.
All those on board had Brazilian identity papers, the company said, without ruling out the possibility that some had dual nationality.
The Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday on the social network X that there was a Portuguese citizen among the victims.
Sudden loss of altitude
The plane was flying from Cascavel, in the southern state of Parana, to Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo. It crashed at 1:25 p.m. (4:25 p.m. GMT).
According to flight tracking website Flight Radar 24, the plane flew for about an hour at 17,000 feet (5,180 meters). At 1:21 p.m. it began to lose altitude and within a minute it dropped sharply to 4,100 feet (1,250 meters).
According to the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), “the loss of contact with the radar occurred at 13:22” and before that the aircraft had not reported an “emergency situation” or “adverse weather conditions.”
The investigation was opened by the Brazilian Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa).
Its experts are analyzing in Brasilia the two black boxes recovered from the plane, containing the conversations in the cabin and the flight data, explained General Marcelo Moreno, head of Cenipa.
This “important information will be able to tell us what happened during this tragic event,” he stressed.
According to the National Civil Aviation Agency, the aircraft, which had been flying since 2010, complied with all current standards.
Frost Hypothesis
It had undergone “routine maintenance the night before” and left Ribeirao Preto, a city in the state of São Paulo where Voepass is headquartered, “without any technical problems,” said the company’s operations director, Marcel Moura.
Experts have speculated that frost forming on the plane’s wings may have caused the crash.
Mr. Moura acknowledged that this model of aircraft flies “at a type of altitude where there is a greater sensitivity to frost.” The weather forecast for Friday predicted frost but within the “acceptable characteristics for a flight,” he explained.
Founded in 1995 as Passaredo, Voepass has a fleet of 15 aircraft and is the fourth largest airline in the Brazilian domestic market, according to the company.
The plane that crashed was an ATR 72-500. The manufacturer ATR, a subsidiary of Airbus and the Italian Leonardo, said its specialists “are fully committed to supporting the ongoing investigation.”
This is the first major air disaster in Brazil in 17 years.
In 2009, an Air France Airbus A330-230, flying between Rio de Janeiro and Paris, crashed into the Atlantic in a zone of turbulence with 228 people on board.