61 dead in Brazil plane crash, local officials say

A passenger plane crashed into a gated residential community in Brazil's São Paulo state Friday, killing all 61 people on board and leaving a smoldering wreck, officials and the airline said.

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 kilometres northwest of the metropolis of São Paulo. But witnesses at the scene said there were no victims among local residents.

The airline, VoePass, said that the ATR 72-500 twin-engine turboprop was headed for São Paulo's international airport Guarulhos with 57 passengers and four crew members aboard when it crashed in Vinhedo. It provided a flight manifest with passenger names, but not their nationalities. A prior statement had said there were 58 passengers.

"The company regrets to inform that all 61 people on board flight 2283 died at the site," VoePass said in a statement. "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."

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. Friday evening, he declared three days of mourning.

The state's firefighters, military police and the civil defence authority dispatched teams to the location. São 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 Júnior 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," Júnior 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 bring medical, X-ray and dental records that 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.