Passenger plane with 62 onboard crashes in Brazil - VIDEO

An airplane carrying 58 passengers and four crew members crashed in Brazil on Friday, according to the airline, News.Az reports citing The Associated Press.

The airline Voepass confirmed in a statement that a plane headed for Sao Paulo’s international airport Guarulhos crashed in the city of Vinhedo with 58 passengers and 4 crew members aboard. The statement didn’t say what caused the accident.

At an event in southern Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked the crowd to stand and observe a minute of silence as he shared the news. He said that it appeared that all passengers and crew aboard had died, without elaborating as to how that information had been obtained.

Firefighters, military police and the civil defense authority dispatched teams to the crash site in Vinhedo. Authorities sealed off the entrance to the residential area where the plane went down, as journalists waited outside for updates.

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 earlier showed the plane drifting downward vertically, spiraling as it fell.

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

News.Az