Rio de Janeiro [Brazil], August 11: Brazilian authorities have recovered the cockpit voice recorder after a plane carrying 61 people on board crashed into a residential area in the city of Vinhedo in the state of Sao Paulo, the Brazilian air force said late Friday.
No one on board survived the crash, which occurred early Friday afternoon.
The cause of the crash was initially unclear. The air force said the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, which has also been recovered, would be examined as soon as possible but cautioned that the outcome was dependent on the extent of damage suffered.
Voice recorders record the conversations in the cockpit, while data recorders track the flight data. The ATR 72 aircraft operated by Brazilian airline Voepass was en route from Cascavel in the state of Parana to Sao Paulo when it crashed into the residential area in Vinhedo shortly before reaching its destination.
Data from the platform Flightradar 24 suggested that the plane descended almost 4,000 metres in less than a minute. Some experts believe that ice may have formed on the wings, which could turn an aircraft into a "rock without momentum," Brazilian news website Uol wrote.
A warning over possible ice formation had been in place for the location of the crash, according to the report. Other experts did not rule out the possibility that several causes were behind the crash.
The plane was en route from the city of Cascavel in the state of Parana to Guarulhos in Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo-Guarulhos Airport is the largest airport in Brazil.
Some 19 months ago, dozens of people died in Nepal in a crash of an aircraft of the same type. Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva asked those attending an event in the south of the country to observe a minute of silence. "A very sad piece of news. My deepest condolences go out to the families and friends of the victims," Lula said on social media platform X. Later on Friday, Lula declared a three-day nationwide state of mourning.
A local resident who recorded a video of the burning plane on a property told the TV channel UOL: "I have never heard such a loud bang in my life."
Source: Qatar Tribune