21 Bodies Recovered After Brazil Plane Crash

At least 21 bodies have been recovered from the site of a plane crash in the Brazilian state of São Paulo which killed everyone on board, the BBC said yesterday.

Teams worked through the night to find victims of the disaster after a twin-engine turboprop operated by airline Voepass came down in the town of Vinhedo. The number of casualties was revised up 62 yesterday.

Voepass said earlier that the ATR 72-500 was carrying 57 passengers and four crew between Cascavel in the southern state of Paraná to Guarulhos airport in São Paulo city. But it later confirmed there was another unaccounted-for passenger on the flight.

Footage circulating on social media showed a plane descending vertically, spiraling as it falls.

The aircraft crashed in a residential area, but no-one on the ground was injured. Officials said only one home in a local condominium complex was damaged.

Capt Maycon Cristo, a spokesman for the fire department which is helping with the recovery, said that so far, two people had been identified from evidence recovered at the scene.

He said teams were relying on a number of factors to help identify passengers. These include documents and the position of bodies in relation to seating, as well as mobile phones recovered from some of the victims.