Brazil plane crash: 21 bodies recovered after disaster

The plane crash is Brazil’s worst since 2007, when a TAM Express plane crashed and burst into flames at São Paulo’s Congonhas airport, killing 199 people.

At this stage, it is not known what caused the ATR 72-500 to crash.

Authorities said the flight recorders had been retrieved.

ATR, the French-Italian plane maker, said it would co-operate with the investigation.

According to the tracking website Flightradar24, flight 2283 had taken off from Cascavel at 11:56 local time (14:56 GMT) on Friday and was due to arrive at 13:40.

The last signal received from the aircraft was about 20 minutes before it was scheduled to land.

Brazil’s civil aviation agency said the plane, which was built in 2010, had been “in good operating condition, with valid registration and airworthiness certificates”.

The four crew members on board at the time of the accident were all duly licensed and had valid qualifications, it added.

The Uopeccan Cancer Hospital in Cascavel told BBC Brasil that two of its trainee doctors were among the passengers who died.

The moment the passenger plane crashed was witnessed by local residents, while others described damage to their homes.

Luiz Augusto de Oliveira told Reuters that he, his wife and their maid were at home when “suddenly we saw the aircraft exploding in the backyard of my house”.

He said: “At the time of the collision, we thought it was a helicopter breaking down, due to the noise.”

He added that everyone in the house was unharmed and while there was some damage, it was “as minimal as possible, it was material goods. I just have to thank God for the way the aircraft crashed.”