Plane crash in Brazil. Man survives because he missed his flight. “It was a miracle”

A Veoepass plane carrying 58 passengers and four crew members crashed Friday in the city of Vinhedo, 80 kilometers from Sao Paulo. There were no survivors.

Adriano Assis was not on board because he arrived late for check-in. Staff told him he would not be allowed to board the plane.

The daily “Estadao” quoted Assis' conversation with his daughter, whom he called from the airport after learning of the crash. “Dad is already on his way home. I missed the plane (…) that crashed. God is very good. Daddy loves you, okay?” the man said.

– I know it was a miracle. The delay saved my life – he said, quoted by the Infobae portal.

Assis also referred to the airport employee who did not let him board the plane. “I argued with him, but he was firm and did not let me in. Today I want to thank him, because if he had made an exception for me, I would have been one of the victims,” ​​he emphasized with tears in his eyes.

Also late for the plane was 21-year-old Jose Felipe Araujo Lima, who told reporters that several other people were arguing at the window about being allowed to board the plane, but the employees did not let them in. Doctor Juliana Chiumento told Estadao that she was also supposed to fly on the plane, but at the last minute she rebooked the flight for the next day at the request of her father. Several of her colleagues from the oncology hospital in Cascavel died in the crash.

Brazilian authorities recovered the bodies of all 62 victims from the plane wreckage on Saturday. The remains of most of the passengers have already been taken to a police morgue in Sao Paulo, where their identities are to be determined. The bodies of the pilots of the plane were identified on Saturday, Dario Pacheco, the mayor of the city of Vinhedo, where the crash occurred, told reporters. Voepass Airlines reported on Friday that the plane was carrying 57 passengers and four crew members. However, on Saturday, the airline confirmed that there was another passenger on board who was not on the list, meaning that a total of 62 people died in the crash.

Voepass also announced that the victims included four dual citizens, including a Portuguese woman and three Venezuelans. According to Globo News, the victims were a four-year-old boy, his mother and grandmother. Their dog was also reportedly on the plane.

Authorities are identifying the victims based on a list of the seats occupied by each passenger, their physical characteristics and personal belongings such as cellphones, firefighter Maycon Cristo said at the scene, according to Reuters.

The Center for the Investigation and Prevention of Aircraft Accidents (Cenipa) has already begun analyzing the black boxes from the crashed plane, SBT News reported, citing the Brazilian Air Force.

The cause of the crash of the ATR 72 passenger aircraft has not yet been determined. Among the hypotheses are a failure of the propellers and icing of the wings, but experts say that the information disclosed so far does not allow determining the causes of the accident – reported the daily “Folha de Sao Paulo”.

The plane was flying from Cascavel in Parana state to Sao Paulo. It crashed at around 1:30 p.m. local time (6:30 p.m. in Poland) in Vinhedo, about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Sao Paulo. Although it landed in a built-up area, no one was hurt on the ground.

The air force said the flight was normal until 1:21 p.m., when the crew stopped responding to calls. The plane disappeared from radar a minute later. The pilots did not report any malfunctions or adverse weather conditions, it added.

The French-Italian consortium ATR, owned by Airbus and Leonardo, is a leading manufacturer of regional turboprop airliners that can seat 40-70 passengers. The company told Reuters that its experts were “fully involved” in the investigation into the Brazil crash.