A plane carrying 58 passengers and four crew crashed Friday in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo. All on board were killed in the crash, local authorities were quoted by AFP as saying.
The ATR 72-500 plane, made in France and operated by the Voepass airline, was on a flight from Cascavel in the southern state of Paraná to Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo when it crashed in the city of Vinedo.
Footage aired in local media shows a large plane pirouetting at high speed, while others show a large column of smoke rising from the crash site in a residential area.
"There are no survivors," the city government in Valinhos, which was involved in the rescue operation in nearby Vinedo, said in an email sent to AFP.
The city of Vinedo, with about 76,000 inhabitants, is about 80 kilometres northwest of São Paulo.
Before the death toll was officially released, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at an event that there appeared to be no survivors.
"A plane just crashed in the city of Viñedo in São Paulo, with 58 passengers and four crew members, and it looks like all of them are dead," Lula said midway through a speech in Itajai in Santa Catarina state.
In a statement, Voepass reported an "incident with Flight 2283."
"There is still no confirmation on how the accident happened," he said.
The São Paulo Fire Department wrote on the social network X: "Airplane crash, 7 teams involved, so far only this information".
Natalie Chikari, who lives near the crash site, told CNN's local channel that the impact was "terrifying".
"I was having lunch, I heard a very loud noise quite nearby," she said.
"I went out on the balcony and saw the plane spinning. After a few seconds I realised that this was not a normal movement for a plane," she told the cameraman.
Chikari was not injured but had to evacuate her home, which was filled with black smoke from the crash.
Teams of firefighters, military police and state civil defense were deployed to the Capella neighborhood, in Vinedo.
According to the website planespotters.net. the doomed plane had made its first flight in April 2010. I BGNES
