Two would-be passengers said they escaped death on Friday after a mix-up caused them to miss their flight aboard the doomed VoePass plane that crashed in Brazil, killing all 62 people on board.
The two passengers were supposed to fly on the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop aircraft, but told a Brazilian news agency that they were unable to make the flight, which ultimately saved their lives. One of them said they were among a group of 10 people who missed the ill-fated flight.
One man, Adriano Assis, told GloboNews that he finished his shift at a hospital and made it to the LATAM Airlines counter around 9:40 a.m. for the 11:56 a.m. flight from Cascavel to Guarulhos.
Passenger plane crashes in Brazil, all 62 people on board die, airline VOEPASS said
The passengers were scheduled to board VoePass Flight 2283, which crashed into a residential area in the Brazilian city of Vinhedo, killing all 62 people on board. (FOX)
Assis said he noticed there were no staff at the LATAM counter, so he grabbed a coffee while checking the departure and arrival screens for updates on Flight 2283.
“The microphone said nothing, the boards said nothing about the flight,” he said.
He said he realized he had actually booked his flight with the airline VoePass and not LATAM. He then went to a counter, but there was a huge line and by the time he got to an agent, it was too late to get in.
“The guy said I couldn’t get on the plane because it was an hour until boarding,” Assis said.
He said he begged the agent to let him board the plane, but the agent refused.
“I argued with him and stuff, that’s it, and he saved my life, man,” he told the outlet, tears streaming down his face with emotion. “He did his job because… if he hadn’t done it… I might not be in this interview today, I’m sorry.”
According to the Associated Press, VoePass Flight 2283, with 57 passengers and four crew members on board, crashed in a residential area in the city of Vinhedo.
The footage showed the plane drifting vertically downward and spinning in a nosedive. The crash site showed a burning area with smoke rising from the destroyed fuselage. Firefighters, military police and the Civil Protection Agency dispatched teams to the crash site.
Another passenger, Jose Felipe, said he was part of a group of 10 people who made the same mistake.
“I thought I was going to leave on a LATAM flight, but it was closed,” he told GloboNews.
“Thank God we didn’t get on that plane. We didn’t know it was going to be from that company (VoePass), we thought it was from LATAM, and LATAM was closed. I even arrived early (at the airport) and waited, waited and nothing.”
Once he found an agent, he said he put pressure on the employee to get him on the plane.
“Sir, I have to get on this plane. I have to go,” Felipe said to the airline employee, who, however, refused to let him board because the boarding time had passed.
“And he said that was impossible. What I could do for you was to rebook your ticket,” Felipe said.
Report: Southwest Airlines flight to Hawaiian island crashes and comes within 120 meters of the Pacific Ocean
An aerial photograph of the wreck. (MIGUEL SCHINCARIOL / AFP))
The Capela district, where the plane crashed, is far from the center of the city, which has a population of 77,000.
At an event in southern Brazil on Friday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked the crowd to stand and observe a minute of silence as he announced the news.
VoePass employees at Guarulhos airport told the Associated Press that the company was notifying the victims’ families and assisting them in a private room at the airport.
He said it appeared that all passengers and crew on board had died, but did not elaborate on how he had obtained this information.
Aviation expert and former pilot Arthur Rosenberg said video of the plane appeared to show the aircraft spinning in mid-air.
“A stall is when the airplane is not moving forward through the air fast enough to maintain lift and stay airborne,” he told Fox News Channel’s “The Story.” “The sound tells me there’s something wrong with one or both engines.”
This photo shows an aerial view of the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Vinhedo, São Paulo state, Brazil, on August 10, 2024, with 62 people on board. (Nelson ALMEIDA / AFP)
Radar data showed a “rapid descent” that could be due to an engine failure or other malfunction, he said.
“It looked like it had crashed 17,000 feet in about two minutes,” Rosenberg said.
The airliner is a twin-engine turboprop aircraft of the type ATR 72-500, which is used for shorter flights.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The aircraft’s manufacturer, the French-Italian ATR, said in a statement that the company’s specialists were “fully committed to supporting both the investigation and the customer.”
The aircraft’s flight data recorder or black box was confiscated by the authorities.
Greg Norman of Fox News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
