Brazilian authorities yesterday recovered the bodies of the 62 victims of the plane tragedy near Sao Paulo, in the southeastern part of the country, while at the same time they began the analysis of the contents of the so-called black boxes of the aircraft to ascertain the causes.
The plane crashed yesterday Friday in Vientiane, a city about 80 kilometers northwest of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s financial capital.
After the sudden loss of altitude and its uncontrolled spin recorded on video by residents, the aircraft crashed in a vegetated area outside a residential complex.
“A total of 62 bodies (34 males and 28 females) were recovered and taken to the mortuary for identification and handover to their families,” the state government informed.
Two of the bodies, those of the governor and the co-governor, have already been identified, according to the mayor of Vigneto, Dario Pasekou.
The Brazilian Aeronautical Accident Investigation and Prevention Center (CENIPA) is conducting an investigation and now its experts have begun to analyze the contents of the two black boxes (the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder).
It is expected to release “within an estimated period of 30 days a preliminary finding” on the causes of the crash, the Brazilian air force said.
Dozens of firefighters, rescuers and police worked yesterday in the field to retrieve the victims.
Although no one was injured in the Recanto Florido housing complex where the plane went down, the shock is immense.
The accident caused “panic”, the feeling among the tenants that they were “powerless”, it was “very sad”, Hoberta Enrique, president of the tenants’ association, told AFP.
The tenants “were terrorized, they suffered psychological trauma,” he added.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national mourning after the “tragic accident”.
The aircraft, built by Franco-Italian company ATR, was carrying 58 passengers and a crew of four, according to carrier Voepass.
Almost all of the victims carried Brazilian-issued identification documents, according to the airline, but they included a woman with dual Brazilian-Portuguese citizenship and a family of three Venezuelan nationals.
It was flying from Cascavel, in the state of Paraná (south) to Guarulius International Airport, in Sao Paulo. It crashed at 13:25 (local time; 19:25 Greek time) in Vinientou.
According to data collected by specialist website flightradar24, the aircraft had been flying for almost an hour at an altitude of 17,000 feet (5,180 meters). At 13:21 it began to lose altitude and the next minute it plummeted to 4,100 feet (1,250 meters).
The Brazilian air force said that “the loss of radar contact was established at 13:22” and that the crew “did not report that they were facing an emergency situation” or “adverse meteorological conditions”.
CENIPA experts are analyzing the contents of the black boxes, with a focus on cockpit conversations and flight data in the moments before the plane began its fatal descent, said Lt. Gen. Marcelo Moreno, the center’s head.
This information is expected to “show us what happened during this tragic event,” he added.
According to Brazil’s civil aviation authority, the aircraft complied with all applicable regulations.
The ATR72-500 had originally entered service in 2010.
It had undergone “routine maintenance” on Thursday night and left Jimeirão Preto, a city in Sao Paulo state where Voepass is headquartered, “without any technical problems”, assured the company’s director of operations, Marcel Moura.
Experts hypothesize that the accident may have been caused by the formation of ice on the wings of the twin-engine turboprop vessel.
Mr Moura acknowledged that the aircraft was flying at an altitude where the type is at increased risk of ice forming on the wings. The weather service had warned of frost on Friday, however at a “flyable” level, he added.
Voepass, founded in 1995, originally under the distinctive name Passaredo, has a fleet of 15 aircraft and has the fourth largest share of the Brazilian domestic flight market, according to the company itself.
The manufacturer of the aircraft, a subsidiary of Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo, assured that its experts would support “the investigation being carried out”.
This was the first major plane crash in Brazil in 17 years.
In 2009, an Air France Airbus A330-230 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared over the Atlantic with 228 people on board in a turbulent area.
Two years earlier, an Airbus A320 of Brazilian carrier TAM skidded off the runway after landing at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport and crashed into a cargo warehouse, killing all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground.
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