Bodies of 62 in Brazil plane crash recovered
Details emerge of who was on doomed flight
The bodies of all 62 victims of a stunning plane crash in Brazil in which the aircraft plummeted to the ground in a residential neighborhood have been recovered, government officials said Sunday.
Investigators finished a search for victims at the site of the crash outside Sao Paulo on Saturday night, according to the state government in Sao Paulo in southeast Brazil. The cause of Friday’s crash was still unknown.
Dozens of families of victims descended on a medical facility Sunday to help identify their loved ones.
The remains of all 62 victims − 34 males and 28 females − were taken to a central police medical facility after responders completed their recovery at 10:45 p.m. Saturday, about 33 hours after the crash, the Sao Paulo state government said in a Sunday statement. At least 31 bodies had been recovered as of Saturday afternoon.
In earlier announcements, authorities said there were 61 people onboard the flight, operated by Brazilian airline Voepass. The passenger total was later updated to 62.
The flight had been traveling from Cascavel, a city along Brazil’s southern border, to the Guarulhos airport in Sao Paulo. The aircraft’s pilots did not report an emergency or adverse weather conditions, Brazil’s air force said in a statement. The aircraft was flying normally on Friday until 1:21 p.m., when it stopped responding to calls, and radar contact was lost at 1:22 p.m., the agency said.
The crash happened shortly after, at 1:30 p.m.
In Sao Paulo, a group of about 40 doctors, dentists and other forensics experts “continues to provide uninterrupted and exclusive care to the victims of the plane crash,” the state government said.
Who was on the flight?
The pilot and co-pilot of the Voepass airlines flight have been identified by authorities as Danilo Santos Romano and Humberto de Campos Alencar e Silva, The Associated Press reported.
At least eight physicians were aboard, according to Gov. Ratinho Júnior, the governor of the nearby state of Parana, home to the famous Iguacu waterfalls. Four college professors from Unioeste university in the western part of the state were also confirmed dead, according to AP.
A 3-year-old girl named Liz Ibba dos Santos was the only child on the passenger list, AP reported. The girl had been traveling with her father. Another family was traveling with a dog whose remains were also found in the wreckage, according to AP.
What caused the plane to crash?
Authorities have not announced a cause of the accident, which saw a ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop airplane spiral out of the air and crash into a residential area in Vinhedo, just northwest of Sao Paulo.
City officials in Valinhos, near Vinhedo, said one home in the local condominium complex was damaged, but none of the residents were injured.
Voepass chief operations officer Marcel Moura said at a news briefing Friday that ice had been predicted at the altitudes the plane was flying, but “within the acceptable range.”
“But the plane is sensitive to ice, that could be a starting point,” Moura said, noting the plane’s de-icing system, along with the rest of the aircraft, had been found operational before takeoff.
‘Like a rock falling out of the sky’
Jaafar El-Awady, a professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, told USA TODAY he was astonished by videos showing how the plane tumbled from the sky.
“It’s not like it was flying down. It looks more like a rock was falling out of the sky,” El-Awady said, indicating the plane stalled midair.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, three of the deadliest airplane crashes in South America have occurred in Brazil.