21 Bodies Recovered After Disaster

At least 21 bodies have been recovered from the site of a plane crash in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, where everyone on board was killed.

Crews worked through the night to find victims of the disaster after a twin-engine turboprop from Voepass airlines crashed in the city of Vinhedo.

On Saturday, the death toll was revised upwards to 62.

Voepass previously said the ATR 72-500 was carrying 57 passengers and four crew members between Cascavel in the southern state of Paraná and Guarulhos Airport in the city of São Paulo. But it later confirmed that another passenger was missing on the flight.

Images circulating on social media show a plane in a vertical descent, spiraling as it falls.

The plane crashed into a residential area, but no one on the ground was injured. Authorities said only one home in a local condominium complex was damaged.

Captain Maycon Cristo, a spokesman for the fire department that is helping with the recovery effort, said two people have been identified so far from evidence recovered at the scene.

He said teams rely on a number of factors to help identify passengers.

These include documents and the position of the bodies in relation to the seats, as well as cell phones recovered from some of the victims.

Captain Cristo said the victims will be transferred to the Sao Paulo police morgue.

Lieutenant Ramatuel Silvino of the São Paulo civil protection service said the family members will be staying at a hotel in the city.

The plane crash is the worst in Brazil since 2007, when A TAM Express plane crashed and caught fire at Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulokilling 199 people.

It is currently unknown what caused the ATR 72-500 to crash.

Authorities said the flight recorders had been recovered.

ATR, the Franco-Italian aircraft manufacturer, said it would cooperate with the investigation.

According to tracking site Flightradar24, Flight 2283 took off from Cascavel at 11:56 a.m. local time (14:56 GMT) on Friday and was due to arrive at 1:40 p.m.

The last signal received from the aircraft was approximately 20 minutes before the scheduled landing.

Brazil’s civil aviation agency said the plane, built in 2010, was “in good operating condition, with valid registration and airworthiness certificates.”

The four crew members on board at the time of the accident were all properly licensed and had valid qualifications, he added.

The Uopeccan cancer hospital in Cascavel told BBC Brasil that two of its medical trainees were among the dead passengers.

The moment of the passenger plane crash was observed by local residents, while others described the damage to their homes.

Luiz Augusto de Oliveira told Reuters that he, his wife and their maid were at home when “suddenly we saw the plane explode in the courtyard of my house.”

He said: “At the time of the collision, we thought it was a broken-down helicopter, because of the noise.”

He added that everyone in the house was unharmed and that while there was some damage, it was “the least possible, it was material goods. I just have to thank God for the way the plane crashed.”

Another resident, Nathalie Cicari, told CNN Brasil that she was eating lunch when she heard a “very loud noise very close by,” describing it as the sound of a drone, but “much louder.”

“I went out onto the balcony and saw the plane turning. Within seconds, I realized that this was not a normal motion for an airplane.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed solidarity with the families and friends of the victims at an event he spoke at.

“I have some bad news to bring and I would like everyone to stand and observe a minute of silence,” he told the audience.

He wrote on social media that the news of the accident was “very sad.” “All my sympathy to the families and friends of the victims,” ​​he said.

The governor of the state of São Paulo, Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, declared three days of mourning.