Two passengers who had tickets on the ill-fated flight that crashed in Brazil on Friday, killing all 62 people on board, have said they escaped death thanks to a travel glitch.
One of the extremely lucky travelers, Adriano Assis, told Brazilian broadcaster GloboNews that he was only still alive because he was unsure which airline he would fly with from Cascavel to Guarulhos at 11:56 a.m., Fox News reports.
Assis, who had just finished a night shift at a hospital before arriving at the airport at around 9:40 a.m., said he thought he was flying with LATAM Airlines, but when he saw that there was no employee at the counter, he decided to get a coffee and kill time.
When Assis finally didn’t see Flight 2238 on the arrival and departure boards, he realized he had booked his trip through VoePass and rushed to the gate. When he reached the counter, an agent told him it was too late to board the plane.
“I argued with him and stuff, that’s it, and he saved my life, man,” he told the outlet through tears.
A second passenger on Flight 2388, Jose Felipe, said he was part of a group of 10 people who experienced the same airline confusion because they believed they were traveling with LATAM Airlines.
“Thank God we didn’t get on that plane,” he said, adding that when he noticed the mistake and tried to pressure a staff member to let him on board, the employee refused to give in.
VoePass Flight 2283, carrying 57 passengers and four crew members aboard an ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop aircraft, crashed in the city of Vinhedo on Friday. There were no survivors.
The horrific crash was captured on shocking video showing the plane spiraling towards the ground. Images from the crash site show flames and smoke rising from the plane’s wreckage.
The plane, bound for Guarulhos, left Cascavel at 11:56 a.m. local time on Friday and flew for about an hour and a half without any problems, officials said.
The crew neither called for assistance nor reported problematic weather conditions.
There were also no signs that the crew had attempted to contact air traffic controllers at surrounding airports, Ports and Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho told reporters on Friday evening.
“The entire crew was competent,” VoePass CEO Eduardo Busch said at a press conference, according to CNN.
The plane’s flight recorder, containing voice recordings and flight data, was recovered from the crash site, said Guilherme Derrite, Minister of Public Security of São Paulo.
The contents of the box are being analyzed to determine what caused the aircraft to spin more than 13,000 degrees in just one minute.
Among the dead were Captain Danilo Santos Romano, 35, a pilot with 10 years of experience, an elderly couple and Rafael Fernando dos Santos, 41, who was travelling with his three-year-old daughter Liz Ibba dos Santos, 3.
With post wires.
