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A 17-year-old Colombian beauty influencer has died alongside her mother and grandmother after a sightseeing helicopter crashed in Brazil.
Sofia Murillo was flying over Rio de Janeiro on August 8 with her mother, Wendy Manrique, 37, and grandmother, Rocio Cubillos, 59, when the helicopter came down in a wooded area close to the Vista Chinesa viewpoint.
The aircraft's pilot, Alessandro Rocha, was also killed in the crash.
Murillo had built a substantial following online, with more than 250,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram. She regularly posted makeup tutorials, beauty advice, personal care content and reviews of cosmetic products.
According to People, the family had arranged a 20-minute sightseeing flight to take in some of Rio's most famous landmarks, including the Christ the Redeemer statue.
The helicopter was only large enough to accommodate three passengers, meaning the six family members had to divide themselves into two groups.
Murillo, her mother and grandmother boarded the first flight at around 11.00am, while her uncle Victor Manrique, his wife and their 15-year-old daughter remained behind at the hangar.
The relatives were reportedly still waiting for their turn when they discovered through news reports that the first helicopter had crashed.
The family had travelled to Brazil to celebrate the 15-year-old girl's birthday.
Emergency services were called shortly after 11am, but the helicopter had crashed in difficult mountainous terrain, making access to the site challenging.
The impact also triggered a fire, which spread through part of the surrounding woodland before firefighters managed to bring it under control.
Authorities have yet to establish what caused the helicopter to crash.
A lawyer representing tour operator Voo Rio Panorâmico said the company held the necessary permits, the helicopter was up to date with its maintenance and Rocha was fully licensed to operate the aircraft.
Murillo's final TikTok post was uploaded just three days before her death and showed her working out at the gym.
Her followers have since filled her social media accounts with messages of grief following the tragedy.
One fan wrote: “You left too soon, Sofi.”
The teenager's death comes less than two months after another fatal helicopter crash in Rio de Janeiro involving singer Oliver Tree and YouTuber Gaspi.
Tree's producer Victor WAO later said he had narrowly avoided boarding the helicopter after a friend arranged for him to make the journey by car instead.
The latest crash adds to a string of recent aviation tragedies. In another incident in Argentina, a student pilot reportedly managed to land a plane safely after her instructor allegedly jumped from the aircraft while it was in flight.
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A 27-year-old mother tragically plunged to her death during a paragliding incident after setting out to conquer her fear of flying.
Daniela Barrios, determined to confront her fears, had shared a photo on her social media account just before the fatal flight, expressing her readiness to tackle her flying phobia.
"Join me on my crazy things," her caption said. "Let's overcome a fear."
Accompanied by her pilot, Barrios embarked on her flight from the El Castillo mountain in the Quidío municipality of Calarcá in Colombia on Saturday afternoon, per the Daily Mail.
Tragically, during the flight over the Pradera Alta trail, she slipped from her seat, as confirmed by the Calarcá Fire Department.
The pilot, whose identity remains undisclosed, was unable to prevent the fall and had to continue the flight until a safe landing could be executed.
Eyewitnesses immediately alerted emergency services upon witnessing Barrios's fall from the paraglider. A search-and-rescue operation commenced around 3:00PM and concluded late into the night, with firefighters discovering Barrios's lifeless body.
"She did not show vital signs when she was found and was pronounced dead on the scene," reported Calarcá Fire Department commander, Captain Javier Arconde, as quoted by El Tiempo newspaper.
"Apparently, the young woman slipped from the seat where the co-pilot is sitting. The pilot had to follow his route because he had no way to stop, he was able to land well but she fell."
Barrios, who was also the owner of a lingerie line, leaves behind a seven-year-old son.
In another tragic story from South America, a Brazilian priest was attempting to raise money for charity when his world record attempt of being airborne using helium balloons ended in disaster.
Father Adelir Antonio de Carli, affectionately known as the 'balloon priest' of Brazil, set off from the port city of Paranagua on April 20, 2008.
Equipped with a parachute for safety, de Carli aimed to break the 19-hour record for the longest duration spent airborne, reported the Guardian.
Despite his background as a skydiver and extensive survival training, de Carli's ambitious attempt ended in tragedy.
With a GPS tracker and radio for communication with air traffic control, de Carli commenced his world record bid. Yet, after eight hours into the flight, the 41-year-old priest vanished from radar, triggering an intensive search operation involving aircraft, helicopters, and rescue teams.
Two days following his departure, remnants of balloons were sighted in the sea off Brazil's Santa Catarina state, marking the last known location of de Carli. Despite exhaustive efforts, his body was not recovered until months later in July, off the southeastern coast of Brazil.
"We were almost certain that it was the priest due to various elements, such as the clothes and material used in the balloon trip," commented Macae’s chief of police, Daniel Bandeira. "The DNA only confirmed our suspicions," as per Reuters.
Reports indicate that during his ill-fated journey, de Carli encountered difficulties with his GPS device and endured extreme cold. Despite reaching an altitude of 20,000 feet, he faced unexpected winds that diverted his course, ultimately leading to his tragic death.
The last words of a three-year-old girl, the youngest victim of the recent tragic plane crash in Brazil, have been revealed.
Last Friday (August 9), a passenger plane tragically crashed in a residential part of Sao Paulo state in Brazil after being filmed spiralling out of control in the air.
Voepass, the airline operating the flight, confirmed that the twin-engine turboprop plane was en route to Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport with 58 passengers and four crew members on board when it crashed in the city of Vinhedo.
Tragically, all 62 people on board the flight were killed in the crash.
Many of the passengers on board were named, including Captain Danilo Santos Romano, 35, who was the pilot behind the controls at the time of the disaster.
He was an experienced pilot who had been working for over 10 years and had been with the Voepass airline since 2022 according to his LinkedIn page, and had logged over 4,500 flight hours.
The youngest victim was three-year-old Liz Ibba dos Santos, who was traveling with her father, 41-year-old Rafael Fernando dos Santos, having planned to spend Brazilian Father's Day together in Santa Caterina, according to Globo TV News.
Liz's heartbroken mother, Adrian Libba, told Brazilian outlet Fantastico: "That was my greatest love and I lost it."
She also shared the heartbreaking final words she heard from her daughter, in a voice note she sent telling her mom: "Hi mommy…I’m already on the plane", before blowing her mother a kiss.
Adrian also revealed that she feared the worst from the moment she heard about the crash, adding: "I think I knew it. A mother feels it, right?
"I lost the best part of me. The most beautiful thing. She was happy, she loved hugging and kissing."
An investigation into the crash has been launched by Brazil's federal police, and new details have since emerged about the flight's final moments.
The plane's black box has been recovered, which has given investigators access to the "full transcript" of the voice recorder in the cockpit.
While the reason for the crash remains unknown as yet, according to reports from local TV station Globo, the pilot and co-pilot noticed a steep loss in altitude just one minute before the plane crashed.
The two-hour recording allegedly revealed that copilot Humberto de Campos Alencar e Silva asked pilot Danilo Santos Romano: "What is going on?", before alleged adding that the plane needed "more power" to stabilise it.
Further details are expected to be shared in due course as the investigation proceeds.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid tribute to those who lost their lives shortly after the disaster, writing on Twitter: "I would like everyone to stand up so that we can observe a minute of silence because a plane has just crashed in the city of Vinhedo, in São Paulo, with 58 passengers and four crew members and it appears they all died."
One of the 61 passengers who was tragically killed after a plane crashed in Brazil sent her family a selfie before her death.
As previously reported, a VoePass Flight 2283 carrying 61 people plummeted into a gated community in the city of Vinhedo on Friday (August 9).
The airline confirmed that the twin-engine turboprop plane was en route to Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport with 57 passengers and four crew members on board when it crashed. There were no survivors.
"The company regrets to inform that all 61 people on board flight 2283 died at the site," Voepass said in a statement. "At this time, Voepass is prioritising provision of unrestricted assistance to the victims' families and effectively collaborating with authorities to determine the causes of the accident," they added.
The plane took off from Cascavel Airport at 11:46AM local time, per CBS News.
At 11:47AM, while Flight 2283 was ascending, a passenger named Rosana Xavier, 23, sent a series of concerning messages to her family.
"Man, two hours of flight," she penned in a text shared by her mother, Rosemeire Xavier, with TV Globo, reported by Daily Mail. "We're going to arrive in the rain. I am so scared of this flight," Rosana said, adding, "I swear. The plane is old."
She then told her loved ones that there was a "broken seat" on the flight, adding: "Chaos," before snapping one last selfie, which showed her looking stone-faced selfie.
This is the selfie she sent:
Rosemeire, who was very distressed after receiving the alarming texts from her daughter, asked Rosana to read a Bible verse to calm her fears. She then found out about her daughter's fate through a news report on television.
"I was in despair," the bereaved mom said. "I started running around the house screaming."
She explained that her daughter worked from home in the city of Franco de Rocha in São Paulo, but was required to attend meetings twice a month in Toledo, Paraná.
"She helped with the shopping at home and had bought her own car," Rosemeire said. "Everything she had was for me, my husband, my girls. She only thought about us. Her money was for helping at home."
Harrowing footage of the moments before the fatal impact was shared online, showing the aircraft spinning out of control before rapidly descending and crashing behind a cluster of trees close to houses. It did not land on any residences, and no one on the ground was injured, officials confirmed.
Many of the victims on board the fateful flight have now been named, including the "experienced" pilot Captain Danilo Santos Romano, co-pilot Humberto de Silva, flight attendants Débora Soper Avila, 29, and Rubia Silva de Lima, 41, Globo TV News reported.
Other victims included an elderly couple - José Cloves Arruda, 76, and his wife Maria Auxiliadora vaz de Arruda, 74, and three-year-old Liz Ibba dos Santos, who was traveling with her father, 41-year-old Rafael Fernando dos Santos, per the outlet.
The flight also contained several doctors who were heading to a seminar, including Arianne Albuquerque Estavan Risso and Mariana Comiran Belim, who were both clinical oncology residents from the Cascavel Cancer Hospital (Uopeccan).
FlightRadar24 said on X (formerly Twitter) that there was an "active warning for severe icing" between 12,000 feet and 21,000 feet in the area where the plane crashed.
They noted that in its final minute, the plane's transponder recorded a vertical speed of between 8,000 and 24,000 feet per minute.
According to AP News, a report from Globo’s meteorological center stated it “confirmed the possibility of the formation of ice in the region of Vinhedo,” and local media cited analysts pointing to icing as a potential factor for the horrific tragedy.
However, Brazilian aviation expert Lito Sousa suspects that weather conditions alone might not explain what happened.
“Analyzing an air crash just with images can lead to wrong conclusions about the causes,” Sousa said. “But we can see a plane with loss of support, no horizontal speed. In this flat spin condition, there’s no way to reclaim control of the plane.”
Our thoughts continue to go out to everyone affected by this tragedy.
The brother of a woman who died alongside her husband, three children, and their pilot in a helicopter crash in New York City has spoken publicly following the tragedy.
Merce Camprubi Montal, her husband Agustín Escobar—a Siemens executive from Barcelona—and their three children, aged 11, five, and four, were killed when a sightseeing helicopter plunged into the Hudson River on Thursday, April 10.
The aircraft was being flown by former Navy SEAL Sean Johnson, who had radioed New York Helicopters shortly before the crash to report that the chopper needed fuel.
Michael Roth, the 71-year-old owner of the helicopter, told The Telegraph: "He [the pilot] called in that he was landing and that he needed fuel, and it should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t arrive."
Eyewitness Max told ABC7: "It sounded like a sonic boom so I look up and literally I saw helicopter splitting in 2, with the rotor flying off in the sky it was going so fast and it just went straight into the water.
"Nothing came up afterwards it must have just sunk and that was it, and then I just waited here and like five minutes later we started seeing the police and stuff come. I've never seen anything like that in my life."
He continued: "For me I just thought it was going to be like city noise, like a crash or like maybe like a jet going overhead - I know that's probably not common. But yeah, just like a big bang on my right and then like a whoop whoop [making a helicopter noise] as you see the propeller like flying off like up way higher than the the helicopter and just land straight in the water.
"I'm not like [sure], maybe the tail separated? But I think definitely the rotor separated and the body went straight into the water, so some something must have happened with the rotor and it just flipped right off."
All six people onboard were confirmed dead, and a full investigation is underway by the National Transportation Safety Board.
In the days following the crash, Merce Camprubi Montal’s brother, Joan Camprubí Montal, traveled to New York to identify the bodies of his sister and her family. He laid a wreath near the crash site and addressed reporters in his native language.
During the press conference, he recited each of the five victims’ names and said: “We will never forget you. We will keep your smile alive every day of our lives, and I believe that’s the best legacy we can give you.”
The pilot’s wife, Kathryn Johnson, also spoke out in the wake of the loss. She told the Gothamist: "I'm just at loss for words. I don't even know what happened. It's just hard right now.”
Johnson’s co-pilot and friend, Earl Watters, wrote on Facebook: "With a heavy heart I post this...Thanks to everyone that has reached out to me. Yes, the pilot of the helicopter crash in NY was my Co-Pilot and great friend on Boomer last year Sean Johnson. ... The world has lost an all around great person and amazing friend. He definitely changed my life for the better and I just want to celebrate his life and how he lived. Always and forever a BOOMER crew member Godspeed Amigo."
The helicopter had taken off from Downtown Manhattan at 2:59PM and was reportedly on its sixth flight of the day. Officials believe the aircraft was a Bell 206.
Authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of the crash and are working to determine whether mechanical failure or other issues contributed to the fatal incident.
A heartwrenching video has emerged of a bride's final moments before she was killed in a helicopter crash.
Rosemere do Nascimento Silva, from Sao Paulo, Brazil, tragically lost her life after the helicopter she was traveling in crashed.
The 32-year-old planned to surprise her groom, Udirley Damasceno, and her wedding guests by arriving at their ceremony, which was in a rural area on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, in the aircraft, according to The Independent.
But in a horrific twist of fate, the chopper crashed on the way to the venue, killing the bride, her brother, the pilot, and a photographer who was six months pregnant.
Heartbreaking footage of the bride's final moments has resurfaced on social media.
In the clip, Nascimento is seen sitting next to her brother, and smiling as she peers out of the window. But, when the alarm suddenly goes off, the plane begins to shake and the passengers can be heard screaming.
The camera then smashes but continues to record as the helicopter, reportedly a Robinson R44, hits the ground and breaks into pieces in a wooded area, which was a few kilometers from the wedding venue at the Recanto Beija-Flor in Sao Lourenco da Serra, per The Sun.
Watch the video below:
The crash was discovered by wedding organizers when they realized the aircraft had not arrived despite confirming it had taken off as planned. Eight fire engines then rushed to the scene but nothing could be done to save the four occupants.
The distraught 34-year-old groom was told the devastating news at the altar by the pastor and was said to have gone into total shock, per NZ Herald.
"I called the pastor who was officiating at the ceremony and he went with me to help break the awful news to the groom," wedding organizer Carlos Eduardo Batista, said, per The Sun. “Udirley was shell-shocked and couldn’t speak as he tried to understand what had happened. He was heartbroken.”
According to Batista, the groom, and the 300 wedding guests were unaware of the bride’s plan to make a spectacular entrance.
"All brides have a dream and hers was to arrive by helicopter to their wedding without anyone knowing," Batista told Brazilian media, Globo, at the time, as cited by NZ Herald.
Sao Paulo police and specialists in aeronautics investigated the reasons behind the devastating crash. They looked into reports that the helicopter might have collided with a tree during bad visibility with rain, fog, and clouds.
The victims of the crash have been identified as the bride, her brother Silvano Nascimento da Silva, photographer Nayla Cristina Neves, and pilot Peterson Pinheiro.
Our thoughts continue to be with everyone affected by this tragedy.
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