Four people died on Friday when a small plane fell into a closed restaurant moments after taking off from an airport on Brazil’s southern coast, and the names released since have made the loss personal: two businesspeople and the two pilots flying with them.
The Piper Malibu went down at about 10:30 on the morning of April 3 in Capão da Canoa, a seaside town in Rio Grande do Sul. It had just left Capão da Canoa Airport en route to São Paulo when, investigators believe, it struck a pole close to the runway’s end and then slammed into the Dom Inácio restaurant directly opposite.
All four people aboard were killed. The victims were Déborah Belanda Ortolani and Luis Antonio Ortolani, two businesspeople, and the pilots Renan Eduardo Saes and Nelio Maria Batista Pessanha. The six-seater plane belonged to Jetspeed Holding Ltda.
Video shared on social media showed the plane flying low and then erupting into a fireball that narrowly missed pedestrians and cyclists nearby. Civil Defense teams evacuated neighboring homes and sealed off the area.
The human side of this tragedy carried one small mercy: the restaurant was empty at the time and no one on the ground was hurt, according to Lieutenant Sabrina Ribas, the Civil Defense communications coordinator.
State governor Eduardo Leite offered his condolences and said he had ordered the full commitment of response teams. “I would like to express my solidarity with the families of the victims and the community of Capão da Canoa in the face of this sad event,” he said.
Investigators are still working to determine why the aircraft lost altitude.
Sources
- 4 Dead After Plane Crashes and Erupts into a Massive Fireball Inside Restaurant
- Small plane crash in Brazil claims four lives | Caliber.Az
