A PASSENGER plane crashed into a gated residential community in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state on Friday, killing all 61 people aboard and leaving a smoldering wreck, officials and the airline said. Officials did not say if anyone was killed on the ground in the neighbourhood where the plane landed in the city of Vinhedo, about 80 kilometres northwest of the metropolis of Sao Paulo. But witnesses at the scene said there were no victims among local residents. The airline Voepass said that its plane, an ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop, was headed for Sao Paulo’s international airport Guarulhos with 57 passengers and 4 crew members aboard when it crashed in Vinhedo. It provided a flight manifest with passenger names, but not their nationalities.

 

A prior statement had said there were 58 passengers. “The company regrets to inform that all 61 people on board flight 2283 died at the site,” Voepass said in a statement. “At this time, Voepass is prioritising provision of unrestricted assistance to the victims’ families and effectively collaborating with authorities to determine the causes of the accident.” It was the deadliest airline crash since January 2023, when 72 people died on board a Yeti Airlines plane in Nepal that stalled and crashed while making its landing approach. That plane also was an ATR 72, and the final report blamed pilot error.