A terrifying video has emerged capturing the moment a passenger plane plummeted to the ground, claiming the lives of everyone on board.
On Friday afternoon, a passenger plane crashed in a residential part of Sao Paulo state in Brazil after spiraling out of control.
Voepass, the airline operating the flight, 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 in the city of Vinhedo.
Tragically, all 61 people on board the flight were killed in the crash.
Video footage of the moments before the fatal impact was shared online shortly after news broke of the tragedy, showing the plane rapidly descending before hitting the ground.
Stunned onlookers captured the plane on video as it quickly dropped through the sky before vanishing behind trees as it fell a reported 17,000 feet in just a minute, according to flight data cited by CNN.
Watch the harrowing video below:Local authorities confirmed that there were no survivors of those on board, after the plane burst into flames on impact.
According to reports from CNN, all of the passengers on board had Brazilian documents but it is not yet known if any had dual citizenship.
Local news also confirmed that nobody on the ground was injured despite the plane having fallen in a residential area, close to homes.
Other clips shared online by eyewitnesses appears to show two bodies strewn among the flaming wreckage.
Ana Lucia, a local resident, told reporters near the crash site: "I thought it was going to fall in our yard.
"It was scary, but thank God there were no victims among the locals. It seems that the 62 people inside the plane were the real victims, though."
Another resident who filmed part of the aftermath of the crash told CNN that she had ducked down and prayed after seeing the plane falling through the sky.
According to Flightradar24 as reported by the New York Post, the ATR72-500 plane was built in 2010 in Europe, and had taken off from Cascavel at 11:56 local time, with its last signal transmitted about an hour and half later.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke out following the tragic crash, asking people in the crowd at an event in southern Brazil to take a moment of silence in memory of those killed.
He said: "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."
Currently, the cause of the crash is unknown, with CNN flight aviation analyst Peter Goetz telling the outlet: "We don’t know if there was any kind of mid-air collision, whether there was an engine failure. We just don’t have enough facts."
French-Italian plane manufacturer ATR, which made the ATR72-500, said in a statement it was informed of an accident involving that model of plane and officials are “fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer.”
It added: "Our first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this event."
.jpg_NXQDbN?tr=h-40)
.jpg_8pb35O?tr=h-40)
.jpg_NXQDbN?tr=h-184)
.jpg_8pb35O?tr=h-184)