Sebastian Locandio
VINEDO, Brazil (Reuters) – Brazilian civil defense teams spent the night clearing the remains of passengers from a plane that crashed near Sao Paulo on Friday, killing all 62 people on board.
The Sao Paulo state government said that as of Saturday morning, at least 21 bodies had been recovered and two victims had been identified at the scene. All bodies were moved to the St. Paul police morgue.
On Friday, regional airline Voepass said the plane was carrying 57 passengers and four crew members, but on Saturday it confirmed there was another unaccounted passenger on board, putting the casualty toll at 62.
Firefighter Mecon Christo said at the crash site that the location of the bodies on the crashed plane, physical characteristics, documents and mobile phones and other items were used to help identify them.
“Once all this evidence is collected, we will remove the victims from the wreckage and put them into vehicles for transport to Sao Paulo,” he said.
Relatives of the victims have been brought to Sao Paulo to help provide genetic material for DNA identification of body parts and other information about the deceased, said Henguel Pereira, civil protection coordinator for the Sao Paulo state government.
The plane, an ATR-72 turboprop that was flying from Cascaville, Paraná, to São Paulo, crashed at around 1:30 pm (1630 GMT) in the town of Vignedo, located in Brazil. About 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Lana state.
Franco-Italian ATR, jointly owned by Airbus and Leonardo, is a major manufacturer of regional turboprop aircraft with 40 to 70 seats. ATR told Reuters on Friday that its experts were “fully engaged” in the accident investigation.
