Two dead after plane crashes into vehicles on busy road in Brazil’s Sao Paulo

A small aircraft crashed on an avenue in Sao Paulo on Friday morning, killing at least two of its passengers, the local firefighter corps said in a statement.

The plane went down in the Barra Funda neighborhood on the city’s west side, near its downtown. A piece of the plane hit a bus, injuring one woman inside, while a motorcyclist was struck by another piece of wreckage, the firefighters’ statement said. Both were receiving medical care.

A later statement said that four additional victims at the site were taken to hospitals in the region with minor injuries.

Images on local media showed the plane’s fuselage and the bus on fire, with firefighters working to extinguish the blaze.

The plane was bound to Porto Alegre, in the southern Rio Grande do Sul state.

The crash took place around 7:20 a.m. local time (5:20 a.m. ET) along Avenida Marquês in the coastal district of Barra Funda, CNN affiliate CNN Brasil reported.

The small twin-engine King Air plane took off from Campo de Marte Airport on Friday morning, but the control tower lost contact with the aircraft minutes before the crash.

Two aircraft passengers were burned to death and six others were injured, according to Military Police. Fire emergency services rescued five people, Military Police Lieutenant Jefferson de Souza told CNN Brasil.

Footage from the aftermath on Friday showed black clouds of smoke and bright orange flames unfurling over the highway.

Authorities have opened an investigation into the cause of the fatal crash.

Source: AP/CNN

--Agencies