A Voepass plane carrying 61 people has crashed in a residential area near Sao Paulo Brazil, falling from an altitude of five kilometers.
The ATR72-500 aircraft built in 2010, operated by regional airline Voepass Linhas Aereas, was enroute from Cascavel in the State of Parana to Sao Paulo at the time of the crash.
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The airline confirmed that the plane crashed northeast of the city of Sao Paulo.
“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 prioritising provision of unrestricted assistance to the victims’ families and effectively collaborating with authorities to determine the causes of the accident.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expressed condolences for the victims’ families earlier on Friday.
“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.”
Data from FlightRadar24 showed the aircraft cruising at 17,000 feet (5,190 meters) until it entered a seemingly uncontrollable flat spin while banking right for Sao Paulo and crashed to the ground in a residential area of Vinhedo two minutes later.
Video footage posted on social media captured the turboprop aircraft’s final moments as it spiraled toward the ground.
❗️✈️💥🇧🇷 – Other angles of the ATR 72 crash this afternoon in the Brazilian city of Vinhedo, in the state of São Paulo.
From the various images we see that the aircraft fell vertically, without any support. pic.twitter.com/g8U1EEClC6
— 🔥🗞The Informant (@theinformant_x) August 9, 2024
Al Jazeera correspondent Monica Yanakiew reported from Rio de Janeiro that the plane “just dropped out of the sky, fell on top of a house; luckily, there was nobody in the house.”
Yanakiew added that the incident is being described as the worst of its kind in modern Brazilian history.
Firefighters, military police, and the country’s civil defence authority have dispatched workers to the site of the crash, which has been sealed off by authorities.
The cause of the crash is still unknown. In aviation, a flat spin typically occurs when a plane’s center of gravity shifts too far towards its tail, pitching its nose up and reducing airflow over the wings. With less air flowing over the wings, the plane loses altitude, and any subsequent horizontal rotation can cause it to enter an uncontrollable spin. With reduced air flow over control surfaces, recovering from such a spin can be extremely difficult, particularly on larger aircraft. Icing on a plane’s wings can also trigger a flat spin.
Voepass is a Brazilian regional airline based in Ribeirão Preto, in São Paulo state, according to CAPA Centre for Aviation, and operates a fleet of turboprop aircraft. It’s the country’s fourth-largest airline by market share. It has a fleet of 15 aircraft.
The company, previously known as Passaredo, serves nearly 50 destinations and has a fleet made up entirely of ATR-72 and ATR-42 aircraft that seat up to 70 passengers.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur