BRASILIA – A plane has crashed in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, killing all 61 people on board, BBC reported.
The twin-engine turboprop was flying from Cascavel in the southern state of Paraná to Guarulhos airport in São Paulo city when it came down in the town of Vinhedo, Voepass airline says.
Footage circulating on social media shows a plane descending vertically, spiraling as it falls.
The ATR 72-500 was carrying 57 passengers and four crew. Local authorities say there were no survivors.
Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expressed solidarity with the families and friends of the victims.
São Paulo’s state Governor, Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, declared three days of mourning.
The authorities said the flight recorders had been retrieved. ATR, the French-Italian plane maker, said it would co-operate with the investigation.
The plane landed in a residential area but no-one on the ground was injured.
Officials say only one home in a local condominium complex was damaged.
Video showed a large area on fire and smoking wreckage in an area full of houses.
Police and fire services are at the scene.
According to tracking website
Flightradar24, the plane left Cascavel at 11:56 local time (14:56 GMT). The last signal received from the aircraft was about an hour and a half later.
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”.
The four crew members on board at the time of the accident were all duly licensed and had valid qualifications, it added.
