Brazilian officials on Saturday remained busy trying to determine what caused the incident. plane crash in sao paulo Describe the day when all 61 people on board the plane died.
Local airline VoypassThe plane, an ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop, was headed to Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport with 57 passengers and 4 crew members on board when it crashed in the city of Vinhedo.
Images recorded by witnesses showed the plane going into a flat spin and falling straight down before crashing to the ground inside a gated community, leaving a charred fuselage. Residents on the ground said there were no injuries.
Raindrops pelted down on rescue workers as they recovered bodies from the scene in the cold of the Southern Hemisphere winter. Some of the condominium’s residents quietly left to spend the night elsewhere.
It was the world’s deadliest airline accident since January 2023, when 72 people died aboard a Yeti Airlines plane in Nepal that stalled and crashed during landing. That plane was also an ATR 72, and the final report blamed pilot error.
The meteorological center of Brazilian television network Globo reported on Friday that it had “confirmed the possibility of ice accumulation in the Vinhedo area” and local media quoted experts as saying that ice accumulation was a possible cause of the accident.
On October 31, 1994, an American Eagle ATR 72-200 crashed, and the United States National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause was ice accumulation while the aircraft was circling in a holding pattern. The aircraft rolled over at an altitude of about 8,000 feet and crashed into the ground, killing all 68 people on board. The US Federal Aviation Administration issued operating procedures for ATRs and similar aircraft, telling pilots not to use the autopilot in ice accumulation conditions.
But Brazilian aviation expert Lito Sousa cautioned that meteorological conditions alone would not be enough to explain why the plane crashed on Friday.
“Analyzing a plane crash based only on photographs may lead to incorrect conclusions about the cause,” Sosa told AP by phone. “But we can see that the plane is out of support, there is no horizontal motion. In this flat spin situation, there is no way to regain control of the plane.”
Speaking to reporters in Vinhedo on Friday, Sao Paulo Public Security Secretary Guilherme Derrite said the plane’s black box had been recovered, apparently in a preserved state.
Voepass operations director Marcelo Moura told reporters Friday night that, although there were forecasts of snow, they were within acceptable levels for aircraft.
Similarly, Lt. Col. Carlos Henrique Baldi of the Brazilian Air Force’s Center for the Investigation and Prevention of Air Accidents told reporters in a late afternoon press conference that it was still too early to confirm whether ice was the cause of the crash.
“The aircraft has been certified to fly in severe icing conditions in a number of countries, including countries that are different from ours, where the effects of ice are more significant,” said Baldi, who heads the center’s investigations division.
In an earlier statement, the center said the plane’s pilots had not called for help, nor had they said they were flying in adverse weather conditions. Ports and Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho told reporters in Vinhedo on Friday night that there was no evidence the pilots had tried to contact controllers at regional airports.
Brazil’s federal police said in a statement that it had launched its own investigation, and sent experts to identify plane crash and disaster victims.
French-Italian plane maker ATR said in a statement that it had been told the accident was related to its ATR 72-500 model, and that the company’s experts were “fully engaged to assist both the investigation and the customer.”
ATR 72 is generally used in short flights. These aircraft are manufactured by a joint venture between France’s Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo SpA
According to the Aviation Safety Network’s database, there have been 470 deaths in accidents involving various models of the ATR 72 since the 1990s.
Brazilian authorities began transferring bodies to morgues on Friday, and asked family members of victims to bring any medical, X-ray and dental tests to help identify the bodies. Blood tests were also conducted to help with identification efforts.
Airports Minister Costa Filho said the Air Force Center would also launch a criminal investigation into the crash.
“We will investigate this so that the people of Brazil can have full information about this matter,” he said.