A passenger plane carrying 62 people crashed in Brazil on Friday, and the country’s president announced that all passengers are presumed dead.
Video footage shared on social media showed the plane plunging behind a cluster of trees, followed by a large plume of black smoke rising into the sky.
The airline, Voepass, confirmed that the plane had departed from Cascavel in the state of Paraná and was en route to São Paulo’s main international airport when it crashed in the town of Vinhedo, approximately 80 kilometers northwest of São Paulo.
Voepass stated that it could not yet provide details on the cause of the crash. The plane, registered as PS-VPB, was identified by flight tracker FlightRadar24 as an ATR 72-500 turboprop. ATR is a company jointly owned by Airbus and the Italian aerospace group Leonardo.
During an event, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva requested a minute of silence for the victims of the crash, noting that all those on board were presumed dead.
São Paulo’s state fire brigade dispatched seven crews to the crash site, according to a social media post.
