The bodies of the victims were taken to the Sao Paulo morgue for identification, while Vinhedo Mayor Dario Pacheco said that “the bodies of the pilot and his co-pilot were identified earlier on Saturday.”
For its part, the airline company “Voebas”, which operates the plane, said that “four people with dual nationality were among the victims, three Venezuelans and a Portuguese woman.”
The company said on Friday that “the plane was carrying 57 passengers and four crew members,” but the company later confirmed, on Saturday, that “there was another unidentified passenger on board the flight, raising the death toll to 62.”
“The Venezuelans were a 4-year-old child, his mother and grandmother, and the child’s dog was also on the flight,” local news agency Globo News reported.
“While recovering bodies from the wreckage, authorities used seat assignments, documents and belongings such as cell phones to identify the victims,” firefighter Maicon Christou said at the scene earlier Saturday.
“The victims’ relatives came to Sao Paulo to provide DNA samples to help identify the bodies,” said Hinguel Pereira, coordinator of the civil defense in the state of Sao Paulo.
For his part, Marcelo Moreno, head of Brazil’s Air Accident Investigation Center, said at a press conference in Vinhedo that “the plane’s black box, which contains audio recordings and flight data, is being analyzed and examined to determine the cause of the disaster, and that an investigation into the causes of the plane crash is underway.”
Last Friday, Brazilian media reported that a civilian ATR-72 plane belonging to the airline “Voepass” crashed during its flight from the city of Cascavel in the state of Paraná to the city of Guarulhos in the state of Sao Paulo, killing “62 people” on board.
The plane crashed in the city of Vinhedo and although it fell in a residential area, no residents of the area were injured.
Videos circulating on social media platforms showed the plane falling in a circular motion, before crashing into the ground in the garden of a house in a residential complex, and thick black smoke rising.
Source: Reuters
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2024-08-12 02:50:05
