Brazil plane crash claims dozens of lives

A passenger plane crashed in a residential area of a city in Brazil's So Paulo state Friday, the airline said, with local officials reporting that everyone on board the plane had been killed.

Officials did not say if anyone was killed on the ground in the neighbourhood where the plane crashed in the city of Vinhedo, about 80 kilometresnorthwest of the metropolis of So Paulo. But witnesses at the scene said there were no victims among local residents.

There was conflicting information about the number of passengers,with an initial statement saying there had been 58 passengers and a subsequent statement from the airline, VoePass, saying 57 passengers and four crew had been aboard the ATR 72-500 twin-engine turboprop.

"The company regrets to inform that all 61 people on board flight 2283 died at the site," the airline, VoePass said in a statement published Friday."At this time, VoePass is prioritizing provision of unrestricted assistance to the victims' families and effectively collaborating with authorities to determine the causes of the accident."

On Saturday, VoePassconfirmed another unaccounted for passenger was on the flight, putting the number of casualties at 62.

At an event in southern Brazil, President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva asked the crowd to stand and observe a minute of silence as he shared the news.Friday evening, he declared three days of mourning.

Black box recovered, official says

The state's firefighters, military police and the civil defence authority dispatched teams to the location.So Paulo's public security secretary, Guilherme Derrite, spoke to reporters and confirmed that no survivors had been found. He also said the plane's black box was recovered.

Parana state's Gov. Ratinho Jnior told journalists in Vinhedo that many of the passengers were doctors from his state attending a seminar.

"They were people who were used to saving lives, and now they lost theirs in such tragic circumstances," Jnior said, adding he had friends on board. "It is a sad day."

Brazilian television network GloboNews showed aerial footage of an area on fire with smoke coming out of an obliterated plane fuselage. Additional footage on GloboNews showed the plane plunging into a flat spin.

Authorities began transferring victims to the morgue on Friday, and called on family members to bringmedical, X-ray and dental recordsthat could be used to help identify their loved ones.

French-Italian plane manufacturer ATR said in a statement that it had been informed that the accident involved its ATR 72-500 model, and said company specialists are "fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer."

The Capela neighbourhood where the plane crashed sits in a district far from the centre of the prosperous city that's home to 77,000 residents.

The plane departed from Cascavel, in the state of Parana.