Residents of Vinhedo (SP), about 80 kilometers from the capital of São Paulo, reported the feeling of panic they experienced after a Voepass plane crashed over the city last Friday (9), leaving 62 people dead. Some had their homes damaged.
“I was in my room and heard a loud noise above the house. I thought it was a truck passing by on the street, carrying something heavy, an iron. Then, when I looked out the kitchen window, I saw smoke and heard the noise. The whole house shook,” says Michelle Oliveira, 40, who lives next door to the condominium where the plane crashed.
Businessman Edson Martins, 46, who also lives in a neighboring condominium, reports that debris from the plane fell into his house. “A piece of iron fell into one of the bedrooms,” he says. The condominium was cordoned off for police investigation.
Systems analyst Luis Augusto de Oliveira, 56, also had his home damaged by the accident. Yesterday afternoon, he collected some personal belongings, such as suitcases, clothes, cosmetics and refrigerator items before his home was closed off.
Another resident of a neighboring condominium said she heard two explosions. “My mother started screaming that the plane was going down. I ran inside. Then she pulled me to one side and I pulled her to the other. We didn’t know whether to leave the house or go back inside. There was an explosion. Soon after, another one. There were two,” she recalls.
Biomedical scientist Ana Paula Ferragut, a resident of Recanto Florido – where the plane crashed – was working from home when she started hearing “a very loud noise”. “It was around 1:20 pm. I went to the balcony, looked up and saw the plane spinning, ‘screwing’ in the air until it fell. It was horrible”, she says. After the crash, she says she started seeing black smoke and hearing a “sequence of explosions”.
“It was around 1:20 p.m. and I called my daughter so we could see through the window where the noise was coming from, which was very loud. Soon after, when we looked again, we saw that the plane was descending, circling over our house, until it crashed very close to us,” said another resident of the area.
Beatriz Contatto, who lives on the street where the plane crashed, was out of her house and received a call from her mother at the time of the crash. “She thought the plane might crash into our house. My daughters were with her. My mother said she noticed a very loud noise getting louder and closer, and that she was watching the plane crash. Then she heard an explosion when it hit the ground.”
Delmiro Menezes de Souza, 65, felt unwell after the accident. The shock caused his blood pressure to drop sharply. “The plane veered towards me. I thought, ‘Now it’s going to kill me.’ It spun around and, when I saw it, I slammed it. I have high blood pressure, but at that moment, it dropped too much,” he said.
Retired Gertrudes Pereira, 72, was in the kitchen when she heard the sound of the plane falling and quickly went out onto the balcony. “I thought it was going to fall on my house.” Her daughter-in-law, educator Michele Simões, was with her. “The wall shook,” she says. At first, she thought it was a helicopter trying to land. Until she heard the crash. “Then, a very thick black smoke rose up.”
“The plane started spinning. Then it did another spin. The house shook,” recalls Nathalia Poiato, 61. “We didn’t know what to do. We ran inside, we ran outside. By the time the plane crashed, it had already exploded and smoke and fire started coming out.”
“I’m in shock,” says Aline Lima, a resident of the house whose garden was hit by the plane crash. She was in the house with her husband and a helper. “My garden was completely destroyed, but we’re all fine, thank God.”
The mayor of Vinhedo, Dario Pacheco, stated that he went to the condominium where the accident occurred to try to help and assist the victims as a doctor, but that it was not possible to provide assistance due to the risk of explosion.
“I arrived on time and saw it, I’m a doctor, I came to work, to help. But, when I arrived and saw the world of flames and the risk of explosion, there was no way to get to the scene itself, we only got 20 meters from the accident.”
“Unfortunately, the plane was on fire, completely blown up, broken, and in no condition to provide any assistance. There was a risk of explosion, and as a result, it was not possible to help anyone. Everyone was dead, the fall was very abrupt, the altitude was very high,” added the mayor.
(With information from Estadão Conteúdo)
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
