An airplane has crashed in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. All 61 people aboard lost their lives.
The turbo machine with two engines flew from Cascavel in the southern state of Paraná to Guarulhos airport in São Paulo city. It suffered the mishap as it came down in the town of Vinhedo,
Voepass airline.
Footage going viral on social media seems to depict a plane going down vertically, spiraling out of control as it falls.
There were 57 passengers and four crew members aboard the ATR 72-500. According to local authorities, there were no survivors.
Brazil's President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, declared he was in solidarity with the families and friends of the victims.
The governor of the state of São Paulo, Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, declared three days of mourning.
Officials said flight recorders had been recovered. The French-Italian passenger and commercial aircraft manufacturer ATR expressed its readiness to cooperate in the investigation.
The aircraft crash-landed in a residential area, but fortunately, no one on the ground was injured.
The damage, officials say, was only to one home in the local condominium complex.
'I went to the balcony and saw the plane spinning'
In pictures: Plane crash kills dozens in Brazil
Video showed a huge swathe on fire and smoking wrecks in a place full of houses.
Police and fire services were at the scene.
According to tracking website Flightradar24, the plane took off from Cascavel at 11:56 local time, equal to 14:56 GMT, and the last signal received from it was about an hour and a half after that.
Brazil's civil aviation agency said the plane, which was built in 2010, had been "in good operating condition, with valid registration and airworthiness certificates".
added that all four crew members on board at the time of the accident were properly licensed and their qualifications in order.
The Uopeccan Cancer Hospital in Cascavel confirmed to BBC Brasil that two of its resident doctors were traveling on the plane and were killed in the crash.
Local villagers watched the passenger plane crash.
"At the noise of the plane falling, I looked out my window from my home and saw the exact moment it crashed," said Felipe Magalhaes to Reuters news agency, adding that he had become "terrified" by the sight.
Another resident, Nathalie Cicari, explained to CNN Brasil that she was having lunch when she heard a "very loud noise very close by". She said it sounded like a drone, but "much louder".
"I went to the balcony and looked—there was a plane spinning. In seconds, I felt that this wasn't a normal plane movement."
It is Brazil's worst plane crash since 2007, when a TAM Express plane crashed and burst into flames at São Paulo's Congonhas airport, killing 199 people.
President Lula honored the dead in a speech at an event.
He said, "I have to be the bearer of some very bad news, and I would like everyone to please stand up so that we can observe a minute of silence.".
He posted on social media that it was "very sad news" about the crash. "All my solidarity to the families and friends of the victims," he said.
According to local authorities, there were 20 emergency workers mobilized from the neighboring town of Valinhos under the operation.
According to the City Hall, "Twenty men were mobilized, including three vehicles from the Valinhos Municipal Civil Guard and one vehicle from the Civil Defense".
ATR said in a statement that it had been sadly informed about an accident with the aircraft ATR 72-500.
"Our first thoughts are with all those affected by this event," it said.
"The ATR specialists are a hundred percent on board to assist both the investigation and the customer."
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