Passenger plane crashes in Brazil carrying 62 people

An airplane carrying 58 passengers and four crew members crashed in Brazil on Friday, according to the airline operating the flight.

The plane took off from Cascavel and was headed to the São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, according to a statement from the airline Voepass Linhas Aéreas.

 Cascavel is in the state of Paraná, southwest of São Paulo.

The airline said it did not have any information on how the plane crash or the condition of the people on board.

But at an event Friday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told a crowd about the crash and said that it appeared that everyone on board was killed. He did not elaborate as to how that information had been obtained.

The plane, flight 2283, fell in the city of Vinhedo, Voepass Linhas Aéreas said.

Response teams have been mobilized in the neighborhood where the plane crashed. The teams include firefighters, military police and the civil defense authority, the São Paulo government said in a post on X.

Firefighters completed battling the blaze from the crash site from earlier Friday afternoon, the government said in a later post on Friday.

The area was then released to investigators including a scientific police unit.

An area of fire and smoke was captured in footage by Brazil’s TV GloboNews. Other footage from the outlet showed a plane spiraling while falling.

Because the plane, an ATR-72, was built in Europe, neither the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board nor the Federal Aviation Administration has jurisdiction over the crash, according to the U.S. agencies.

Brazil has a “robust” crash investigation team, the NTSB said.