What video of Brazil plane falling from sky tells expert about what happened
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What we covered here
At least 61 people were killed after a passenger plane crashed outside São Paulo on Friday afternoon, according to Brazilian officials. Authorities have located the black box flight recorder at the crash site, an official said.
The cause of the crash is still unclear, airline Voepass said in a statement Friday. The plane was traveling from Cascavel, in the Brazilian state of Parana, to São Paulo.
CNN has confirmed through geolocation that the plane crashed in a residential area in Vinhedo, Brazil. Brazil’s Civil Defense said the aircraft crashed into multiple houses.
Dramatic social media videos showed the plane crashing in the residential area and then a plume of gray smoke going up in the sky.
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Our live coverage of the plane crash in Brazil has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or scroll through the posts below.
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No information yet on cause of crash, airline officials say
From CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq
Voepass airline officials said there is no information as of yet on what caused the plane crash that killed at least 61 people outside São Paulo Friday.
The airline will work closely with the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (CENIPA) to look into the case, Voepass CEO Eduardo Busch told a press conference.
“The entire crew was competent,” Busch said. “We are waiting for access to all communications between the pilot and the control tower to have a broader understanding of what happened.”
Busch said the plane had two black boxes – devices that store flight data built to withstand crashes – and that there are two highly qualified laboratories available to analyze them.
“On one hand, it is possible to retrieve data from the recorder, but on the other hand, there is a chance that, due to the severity of the accident, the recorders were damaged, making it impossible to access the recorded data,” Busch said.
“In any case, the agency has international partnerships that can help them understand what happened with the accident,” he added.
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Plane crash victims all had Brazilian documents, airline officials say
From CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq
All 57 passengers who were on board the plane that crashed in the city of Vinhedo on Friday had Brazilian documents, Voepass airline officials said in a news conference.
It was not yet clear if any passengers had dual citizenship, according to Voepass CEO Eduardo Busch and Director of Operations Marcel Moura.
The officials said that the company spent the afternoon securing hotels and psychologists for the victims’ families and providing them with support.
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What we know, so far, about the plane crash that killed 61 people in Brazil
From CNN staff
Emergency personnel work close to the wreckage of the crashed plane in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on Friday, August 9.
Miguel Schincariol/AFP/Getty Images
At least 61 people are dead after a passenger plane crashed outside São Paulo Friday afternoon, according to a statement issued by air company Voepass.
Dramatic footage circulating on social media showed the plane’s fall and its destroyed fuselage in flames on the ground.
Here’s what we know:
The plane’s destination: Flight 2283left Cascavel, in the Brazilian state of Paraná, and was headed to Guarulhos, in São Paulo state, according to Flightradar24 data. The plane crashed in a residential area of Vinhedo.
The timeline: The aircraft took off shortly before noon local time, flight tracking data shows. The plane had been cruising at 17,000 feet until 1:21 p.m. local time when it dropped approximately 250 feet in 10 seconds. It then climbed approximately 400 feet in about eight seconds. Eight seconds later, it lost just under 2,000 feet. Then, in approximately one minute, it began rapidly descending — roughly 17,000 feet in just one minute.
The victims: A medical team is onsite and working to identify the victims, the Security Secretary from São Paulo Guilherme Derrite said. Officials are contacting the family members of the passengers and will release the names of those on the plane soon, he said.
The crash scene: Brazil’s Civil Defense said the aircraft crashed into multiple houses. No one was killed in the surrounding residential area, Valinhos City Communications Director Ana Cândida Briski said. Aerial images show the nose of the plane and burnt scraps of the plane littering the ground. Witnesses described hearing the plane before it crashed, with one person saying it fell on the roof of an elderly couple’s house.
The investigation:Multiple agencies are at the scene of the crash and the Brazilian Air Force team will be in charge of the investigation, according to Vinhedo City Hall. Authorities have found the black box at the crash site, according to Derrite, which will help investigators determine what happened. Voepass said in a statement on its website that it had no information on what caused the crash.
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Brazil's security forces begin to remove bodies from crashed plane, government says
From CNN's Tatiana Arias and Mohammed Tawfeeq
A police member stands guard near the scene of the plane crash on Friday, August 9, in Vinhedo, Brazil.
Eduardo Carmim/Getty Images
Teams with the security forces of São Paulo have removed the first three bodies from the site of the Brazil plane crash, according to a statement released by the government of the state of São Paulo.
The bodies will be sent to the Central Forensic Medical Institute which “will be closed to work exclusively on the victims of the Vinhedo accident,” the statement read.
“To help identify the bodies, families must present any medical exams or documentation they have on the victims, such as radiological, medical and/or dental exams, to the Central Forensic Medical Institute,” the statement read.
The Civil Defense of the State of São Paulo will also have a team available to provide support to the families of those killed in the crash, according to the statement.
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Brazil's president declares 3 days of mourning for victims of plane crash
From CNN's Isa Soares
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared three days of mourning in response to the plane crash that killed 61 people on Friday.
The governor of the state of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, and Vinhedo City Hall also declared three-day mourning periods to honor the victims of the crash earlier Friday.
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US Embassy in Brazil expresses solidarity with families of plane crash victims
From CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq
The United States Embassy in Brazil has expressed solidarity with the families of the 61 victims killed on the plane that crashed in the city of Vinhedo on Friday.
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Brazil's Civil Aviation Agency says the plane that crashed and its crew were fit to fly
From CNN's Tatiana Arias and Mohammed Tawfeeq
\Aerial view of the wreckage of an airplane that crashed with 61 people on board in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on Friday, August 9.
Miguel Schincariol/AFP/Getty Images
Brazil’s Civil Aviation Agency said in a statement Friday that the plane that crashed and its crew were fit to fly.
The Civil Aviation Agency will continue “to monitor the provision of assistance to victims and their families by the company. In addition, the Agency continues to monitor the developments of the investigations,” the statement read.
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Aerial images capture destruction from plane crash in a Brazilian neighborhood
From CNN's Elise Hammond
Aerial images show the level of destruction.
CNN Brasil
Aerial images of a plane crash in a Brazilian neighborhood show the level of destruction as officials work to identify victims.
Video shows the wreckage very close to a house in Vinhedo — a residential area in the western part of São Paulo.
Flight tracking data from Flightradar24 shows the plane dropped roughly 17,000 feet in just one minute. One eyewitness told Reuters the plane fell on the roof of a home of an elderly couple.
In the aerial images, you can see the nose of the plane and the windows of the cockpit. Behind that, burnt scraps of the plane litter the ground, and the tail can be seen in a few trees.
Other images show first responders lined down the street leading up to the crash site.
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Death toll in Brazil plane crash is now at least 61, airline says
From CNN's Marcelo Maderios
Debris is pictured as emergency personnel work at the site of the crash.
Juninho Giugni via Instagram/Reuters
Voepass Linhas Aéreas has revised the death toll to 61 people in Friday’s plane crash in Brazil, according to a new statement from the airline.
The death toll was amended to 57 passengers and four crew members.
Brazil's Air Force will investigate the cause behind the crash near Vinhedo, City Hall says
From CNN's Durate Mendonca and Mohammed Tawfeeq
Police vehicles arrive near the scene where a plane crashed in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, Friday, August 9,.
Andre Penner/AP
The Brazilian Air Force team will investigate the cause of Friday’s deadly plane crash, the Vinhedo City Hall said in a statement.
Vinhedo City Hall said it has been on the site of the crash offering support to other emergency responders. It said in the statement that it is waiting for the Air Force team to arrive, which will be “responsible for the investigation.”
It said the bodies of the victims will be taken to the Legal Medical Institute in Campinas.
Vinhedo City Hall also declared a three-day mourning period in memory of the victims of the crash.
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Authorities recover black box from fatal Brazil plane crash
From CNN's Marcelo Medeiros and AnneClaire Stapleton
Authorities have found the black box at the crash site in Brazil, according to the Security Secretary from São Paulo Guilherme Derrite.
The black box holds crucial data that will help investigators understand what caused the plane to crash.
A medical team is onsite and working to identify the victims, he said at a news conference, but many of the victims’ remains are too badly burned for visual identification.
Officials are in the process of contacting family members of the passengers, according to Derrite. Authorities will release the names of the passengers soon, he said.
Valinhos City Communications Director Ana Cândida Briski told CNN earlier that the 62 people who were on board the plane are dead.
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Multiple passengers did not make the Brazil flight after going to the wrong gate
From CNN's Marcelo Medeiros
A man who missed the flight told Brazilian news outlet Globo that at least 10 people were waiting at the wrong gate and missed the flight before it took off.
“They said to me, ‘Mister, you’re not getting on this plane because we’re already past the boarding limit.’ I even pressured them a little. ‘Mister, put me on this plane, I have to go,’ then he said, ‘There’s no way, what I can do is rebook your ticket,’” the man told Globo.
When they realized they were at the wrong gate, the passengers begged the airport employees to board the plane but were told they could not.
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Witnesses describe hearing the plane just before it crashed into Brazilian neighborhood
From CNN's Elise Hammond
An image taken from video shows the aftermath of the crash in Vinhedo, Brazil, on Friday, August 9.
CNN Brasil
One woman in Vinhedo, Brazil, said she heard the plane before she saw it.
“I heard a very loud noise, very close to me. I thought it was a drone. I looked up to the sky and saw the plane spinning,” Nathalie Cicari told CNN Brasil.
In those next few seconds, Cicari said she realized she had no time to run — the plane was too close to where she was standing. She said she ducked just before she heard a loud crashing sound.
Flight tracking data from Flightradar24 shows the plane dropped roughly 17,000 feet in just one minute.
“When I realized it had passed, I went to the balcony and I saw a gigantic black smoke rising,” Cicari said.
Another eyewitness, Felipe Magalhaes, told Reuters he also heard the plane as it was falling. Speaking in Portuguese, he told the news outlet he looked out of his window the moment it crashed.
He said his intention was not to see the wreckage but to try to help people in the neighborhood, according to Reuters.
“My intention was not to see the plane, it was nothing — it was to get the elderly people out of the house. But they didn’t want to leave because of their animals,” Magalhaes said, adding that the plane fell on the roof.
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Here's where the crash happened
From CNN staff
A passenger plane carrying 62 people crashed on the outskirts of São Paulo on Friday afternoon, killing everyone on board, according to Brazilian officials.
The flight left Cascavel, in the Brazilian state of Paraná, and was en route to Guarulhos, in São Paulo state, according to Flightradar24 data.
The plane crashed in Vinhedo — a residential area in the western part of the city.
Here’s a map of the crash location:
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Crashed plane was manufactured in 2010 and purchased by airline in 2022, records show
From CNN's Paul P. Murphy, Pamela Boykoff and AnneClaire Stapleton
The Voepass Linhas Aéreas flight that crashed near Vinhedo, Brazil, was manufactured in 2010 and purchased by the airline in September 2022, according to registration data from the Brazilian Aeronautical Registry.
The plane can carry 68 passengers, has 73 seats and requires a minimum of two crew members to operate, the registration shows.
The registration also indicates that the aircraft was “denied operation for air taxi.” But it’s unclear why or when that determination was made at this time.
ATR, the plane’s manufacturer, says it was aware of an accident and is working to support investigators.
CNN has reached out to Brazil’s aviation authority for more details.
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Black box flight recorder will be critical in determining why the plane crashed, former investigator says
From CNN's Elise Hammond
The black box flight recorder onboard the plane that crashed in Brazil will be an important part of the investigation into what happened, a former investigator told CNN.
Alan Diehl, who worked for the US National Transportation Air Safety Board, said these devices will “tell the story once they recover them.”
Speaking to CNN’s Isa Soares, Diehl said black boxes are “highly survivable,” even in a crash like this where there is a lot of fire.
The plane went down in a residential area in Vinhedo, Brazil. Video and photos of the crash site show emergency responders putting out fire at the wreckage.
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São Paulo governor establishes crisis cabinet to respond to Brazil plane crash
From CNN's Duarte Mendonca and AnneClaire Stapleton
Emergency responders work the scene of a plane crash in Vinhedo, Brazil, on Friday.
Reuters
The governor of São Paulo, Brazil, has created a crisis cabinet to respond to the deadly plane crash in Vinhedo, which is located in the interior of the state.
Multiple agencies are at the scene of the crash helping with rescue efforts, the São Paulo Government said earlier in a statement.
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No one in the residential area where plane crashed was killed, city spokesperson says
From CNN's Julia Vargas Jones
No one was killed in the residential area where the plane crashed, Valinhos City Communications Director Ana Cândida Briski told CNN.
The death toll remains at 62, which were the people who were on board the plane, she said.
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Plane began losing altitude a minute and a half before crashing, flight tracking data shows
From CNN's Paul P. Murphy
The flight that crashed near Vinhedo, Brazil, began losing altitude a minute and a half before crashing, flight tracking data from Flightradar24 shows.
The plane, which belonged to Voepass Linhas Aéreas, had been cruising at 17,000 feet until 1:21 p.m. local time (12:21 p.m. ET), when it dropped approximately 250 feet in 10 seconds.
It then climbed approximately 400 feet in about eight seconds.
Eight seconds later, it lost just under 2,000 feet. Then, in approximately one minute, it began rapidly descending — roughly 17,000 feet in just one minute.
The last data transmission from the plane was at 1:22 p.m. local time (12:22 p.m. ET).
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