A plane on a domestic flight in Brazil crashed Friday with 62 people on board in the interior of the state of São Paulo, firefighters and the airline Voepass announced. There are “no survivors”, announced the city hall of Valinhos, a town near the crash site.
The plane that was flying from Cascavel, in the state of Parana (south), to Guarulhos International Airport, in São Paulo (southeast), crashed in the city of Vinhedo.
No official figures have been released yet on the accident of the ATR 72, which was carrying 58 passengers and four crew members. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that “it seems” that “all” the people died, but was not certain.
“Aircraft crash, seven teams involved, only information available at the moment,” the São Paulo firefighters reported on the social network X.
In a statement, Voepass reported “the occurrence of an accident of flight 2283” on Friday in the Vinhedo region.
“The aircraft took off from Cascavel bound for Guarulhos. There is no confirmation yet regarding the circumstances of the accident and the current situation of the people on board,” the company added.
“Terrifying,” says witness
The aircraft is an ATR 72-500 model, made in France.
The town of Vinhedo, with some 76,000 inhabitants, is located some 80 km northwest of São Paulo.
“A plane has just crashed into the city of Vinhedo, in the state of São Paulo, with 58 passengers and four crew members and it seems that all of them are dead,” Lula said at an official event in Itajai (south). He observed a minute of silence for the victims.
Images released by local media showed the plane falling at high speed, and others showed a long column of smoke rising above what appeared to be a residential area.
Nathalie Cicari, who lives near where the plane crashed, told CNN Brasil that the shock was “terrifying.”
“I was having lunch, I heard a very loud noise very close to me, I thought it was a drone,” but “much louder,” she said.
“I went out on the balcony and saw the plane circling. I realized that this was not a normal movement for a plane,” she added, saying she thought “like in the movies, praying.”
Nathalie Cicari was not injured, but had to leave her house, which was filled with “black smoke” from the accident.
Teams of firefighters, military police and state civil defense were deployed to the Capela neighborhood in Vinhedo.
Further details will follow.