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Brazilian authorities on Saturday completed the recovery of the bodies of 62 people killed in a passenger plane crash as experts began examining the plane’s black box to determine the cause of the crash.
Video footage showed the ATR 72-500 aircraft spinning in a sickening downward spin before crashing into a residential area in the town of Vinhedo, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Brazil’s financial capital Sao Paulo, on Friday.
The plane, operated by Walpass Airlines, fell almost vertically, landed on its belly and exploded into flames with such force that the plane was nearly “flattened,” said Sao Paulo Fire Lt. Olivia Peroni Cazzo.
“A total of 62 bodies (34 men and 28 women) were found and sent to the Sao Paulo morgue for identification and handing over to the families,” the regional government said late Saturday.
Two of the men were identified through fingerprints, and Vinedo Mayor Dario Pacheco said they were the pilot and co-pilot.
The twin-engine turboprop plane, manufactured by ATR Airlines, was flying from Cascavel in the southern state of Paraná to Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo.
Marcelo Moreno, head of Brazil’s Centre for Investigation and Prevention of Air Accidents (CENIPA), said experts at the centre had begun analyzing two black boxes recovered from the wreckage, which contain onboard conversations and flight data.
The Brazilian Air Force said it plans to issue a preliminary report “within 30 days”.
The plane flew at 17,000 feet (5,180 meters) for about an hour until it began to descend at a catastrophic rate at 1:21 p.m. (16:21 GMT), the Flight Radar 24 website reported.
Radar contact was lost at 1:22 p.m., the Air Force reported. The plane’s crew “never declared an emergency and encountered no adverse weather conditions,” the Air Force said.
– ‘No technical issues’ –
ATR, a joint venture between European giant Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo, said its experts would assist in the investigation.
The aircraft has been in service since 2010 and complies with current standards, the country’s civil aviation authority said, adding that all four crew members were fully certified.
Marcel Moura, Voepass operations director, said the aircraft had undergone routine maintenance the night before the accident and “no technical issues were found”.
But experts believe that ice on the plane’s wings may have caused the accident.
Mora said the plane was flying at an altitude that was “sensitive to icing” but that weather conditions on Friday were “within acceptable flying ranges.”
– National mourning –
The plane crashed, its fuselage burning into a mass of twisted metal, but despite the massive damage, no one on the ground was killed.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has declared three days of national mourning for one of the worst aviation accidents in the country’s history.
“It’s horrible, horrible … Such a sad tragedy,” said a trembling Lourdes da Silva Astolfo, 67, whose home is just yards (meters) from the crash site.
She told AFP she first felt “a rumble, almost like a vibration” before suddenly seeing the plane flying almost directly overhead. Seconds later there was a startling impact, with neighbours screaming in fear and thick smoke billowing.
The area where the plane crashed is usually quiet and wooded, but on Saturday there was a constant flow of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks.
All the victims were travelling with Brazilian identity documents, including a woman who had dual Portuguese citizenship and a family of three from Venezuela, Wopas said.
This is the worst major air crash in Brazil in 17 years.
In 2007, an Airbus A320 passenger plane of Brazil’s TAM Airlines overran the runway at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas Airport and crashed into a warehouse, killing all 187 passengers and 12 runway workers on board.
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