A pair of late arriving passengers who just missed boarding the Voepass Airlines plane that crashed into the backyard of a condominium in Vinhedo, Brazil, on Friday are breaking their silence on their near miss with fate.
While officials have said all 62 people were killed on board the flight, the Vinhedo City Hall later claimed that 61 – including 57 passengers and four crew members – had perished.
Adriano Assis had finished his shift at a hospital and was running late to catch the 11:56 am flight at Cascavel Regional Airport in Cascavel, Paraná to São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo.
Assis told Brazilian news outlet G1 that he made it to the counter at 9:40 am and noticed that there were no agents. He stood nearby and had a coffee while constantly looking at the departure and arrival screen to see if there was any information available for flight 2283.
‘When I decided it was already 10:30 am, there was a huge line here,’ he recalled. ‘I waited until it was 10:40 am or so. The guy said I wouldn’t be boarding anymore because it was an hour before boarding.’
Assis said that he pleaded with the agent to allow to board his return flight to São Paulo.
‘At that moment, I argued with him and stuff, and that was it, and he saved my life, man,’ he said. ‘He did his job because… if he hadn’t done it… maybe I wouldn’t be in this interview today, sorry.’
Another young man told the outlet that he and three friends were among 10 passengers who were waiting by the wrong gate and unable to board the flight.
‘When it was 11 o’clock, I came looking here. When I looked I said, “Man, you’re not getting on that plane anymore”,’ he recalled.
He attempted to persuade one of the gate agents into allowing him inside the plane, but his tactics didn’t work.
‘I said, “Girl, put me on this plane, I have to go, I have to go”,’ he said.
‘She said, “No …What I can do for you is reschedule your flight.” So, she rescheduled it for 6:20 pm.’
The turboprop ATR 72-500 aircraft made a sharp turn and descended about 13,123 feet in under two minutes, according to aviation flight-tracking company Flightradar 24.
The plane reached an altitude of 16,404 feet at 12:23 pm and began to descend at 1:21 pm. It reached an altitude of 4,101 feet at 1:22 pm.
A video filmed by a resident shows the airplane spinning in the air before it crashed in the backyard.
The São Paulo Military Police stationed in Vinhedo received a phone call from one of the residents reporting the disaster at 1:28 pm.
‘ATR has been informed that an accident occurred in Vinhedo, Brazil involving an ATR 72-500,’ a spokesman for ATR told DailyMail.com.
‘Our first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this event. The ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer.’
The Brazilian Air Force said an team with the Aeronautical Accident Investigation and Prevention Center had been dispatched from São Paulo to carry out the investigation.