Workers begin recovering bodies from Brazil plane crash

Vinhedo, Brazil   -  Emergency crews on Saturday began removing the victims of a plane crash in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state that killed all 62 people aboard, as authorities sifted through the blackened wreckage to try to determine what caused the plane’s dramatic plunge. Videos showed the ATR 72-500 plane in a sickening downward spin Friday before it crashed into a residential area of the town of Vinhedo, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo city. The Voepass airline said Saturday that there were 62 people on board, not 61 as it had reported earlier. All 62 were Brazilian; there were no survivors.  While some houses at the crash site were damaged, no injuries or deaths were reported among their residents. The crash transformed the plane’s fuselage into a mass of twisted iron.  A steady overnight rain complicated the recovery efforts by some 200 workers, but as of midday Saturday, 24 bodies had been removed, Vinhedo Mayor Dario Pacheco told reporters. With many victims badly burned, so far only “two bodies have been identified: the pilot and the co-pilot,” Pacheco said. The dead are being transported to Sao Paulo’s main morgue. “We estimate that all bodies will have been recovered by day’s end,” said Carlos Palhares, who heads the federal police’s criminology institute.

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