World
Passenger plane crashes in Brazil, killing all 61 on board
Video shared on social media showed the ATR-72 aircraft spinning out of control as it plunged down behind a cluster of trees near houses, followed by a large plume of black smoke.
![](https://www.ariananews.af/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Plane-crash.jpg)
A regional turboprop plane fell into what aviation experts called a flat spin before crashing in a residential neighborhood near Sao Paulo in Brazil on Friday, killing all 61 people on board.
Regional carrier Voepass said the plane, bound for Sao Paulo's international airport, took off from Cascavel, in the state of Parana, and crashed at around 1:30 p.m. (1630 GMT) in the town of Vinhedo, some 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo, Reuters reported.
Video shared on social media showed the ATR-72 aircraft spinning out of control as it plunged down behind a cluster of trees near houses, followed by a large plume of black smoke.
Nearby resident Daniel de Lima said he heard a loud noise before looking outside his condominium in Vinhedo and seeing the plane in a horizontal spiral.
"It was rotating, but it wasn't moving forward," he told Reuters. "Soon after it fell out of the sky and exploded."
City officials at Valinhos, near Vinhedo, said a home in the local condominium complex had been damaged after the plane crashed into its backyard. None of the residents were hurt.
"I almost believe the pilot tried to avoid a nearby neighborhood, which is densely populated," de Lima said.
The plane's unusual final circling motion before hitting the ground triggered widespread curiosity among aviation experts, leading some to speculate that ice had built up on the plane or it had experienced engine failure, but investigators said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash.
"Today ice was predicted (at the altitudes the plane was flying at), but within the acceptable range," Voepass Chief Operations Officer Marcel Moura told a press conference.
"But the plane is sensitive to ice, that could be a starting point," Moura said, adding the plane's de-icing system, along with all other systems, had been deemed operational before takeoff.
Brazilian aviation engineer and crash investigator Celso Faria de Souza told Reuters that a buildup of ice could have caused the plane to stall and spiral in the way that it did.
An ATR-72 crashed in 1994 in Indiana, killing 68, after the plane was unable to bank due to ice accretion. Another ATR-72 stalled out in 2016 in Norway after ice built up on the plane, but the pilot was able to regain control of the aircraft.
An ATR-27 also crashed in Nepal in 2023, with the final report attributing pilot error.
The head of Brazilian aviation accident investigation center Cenipa said the plane's so-called "black box" containing voice recordings and flight data had been recovered from the site.
U.S. aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said investigators would look at things like weather and whether the engines and controls were functioning properly ahead of the crash.
"From what I've seen, it was definitely what we would call loss of control," he said.
Flightradar data showed significant gyrations in speed before the crash, U.S. aviation safety consultant and former commercial pilot John Cox said, cautioning that he would want to verify the data but that something "really significant" happened to cause the plane to spin when it came down.
"It appears that there may have been some catastrophic event before that loss of control," he said.
Cenipa head Marcelo Moreno told a press conference that initial reports indicated the aircraft had not reached out to traffic control to report an emergency.
Voepass, Brazil's fourth-largest airline by market share, had originally reported 62 people aboard the aircraft. Local outlet Globo News interviewed two men who said they had missed the flight.
In total, the plane was carrying 57 passengers and four crew, Voepass said. All were carrying Brazilian-issued documents, the carrier reported.
Some of the passengers were doctors from Parana heading to a seminar, Governor Ratinho Junior told journalists.
"These were people who were used to saving lives, and now they've lost theirs in such tragic circumstances," he said.
Franco-Italian ATR, jointly owned by Airbus (AIR.PA), opens new tab and Leonardo (LDOF.MI), opens new tab, is the dominant producer of regional turboprop planes seating 40 to 70 people.
ATR told Reuters that its specialists were "fully engaged" with the investigation into the crash and its customers.
The motor on the plane was a PW 127 produced by Pratt & Whitney Canada, its parent company RTX Corp (RTX.N), opens new tab confirmed to Reuters. RTX said that it had offered assistance in the investigation.
Both French and Canadian investigators will participate in the investigation, Moreno said. Europe's safety regulator also said it would offer technical assistance.
The crash is Brazil's deadliest since 199 people were killed in 2007 on a flight operated by TAM, which later joined LAN to become what is now LATAM Airlines.
World
Dozens killed, wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza tent camp, Gaza agency says
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times.
![](https://www.ariananews.af/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Gaza-Khan-younis.jpg)
Israeli airstrikes on a tent camp for displaced Palestinians killed and wounded 65 people in southern Gaza, the enclave's civil emergency service said early on Tuesday, as the Israeli military said it had targeted a Hamas command center, Reuters reported.
Residents and medics said a tent encampment near Khan Younis in the Al-Mawasi area, a designated humanitarian zone, was struck by at least four missiles. The camp is crowded with displaced Palestinians who have fled from elsewhere in the territory.
The Gaza civil emergency service said at least 20 tents caught on fire, and missiles caused craters as deep as nine meters (30 feet). It said the 65 victims included women and children but did not provide a breakdown of deaths and injuries.
There was no immediate comment from the Gaza health ministry, which compiles casualty figures. Earlier, the Hamas-aligned Shehab News Agency said 40 Palestinians were killed.
"Our teams are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area. It looks like a new Israeli massacre," a Gaza civil emergency official said.
The official added that teams have been struggling to search for victims who might have been buried, read the report.
The Israeli military said it "struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Younis."
"The terrorists advanced and carried out terror attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel," the statement said, referring to the Israeli Defence Forces.
Hamas, the Islamist group that controlled Gaza before the conflict, denied Israeli allegations gunmen existed in the targeted area, and rejected accusations it exploited civilian areas for military purposes.
"This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes. The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes," said Hamas in a statement.
Ambulances raced between the tent camp and a nearby hospital, while Israeli jets could still be heard overhead, residents said.
Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times, Reuters reported.
The war was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the enclave's health ministry.
The two warring sides each blame the other for a failure so far to reach a ceasefire that would end the fighting and see the release of hostages.
World
Israeli strikes on Syria kill at least four civilians, Syrian state media say
There has been no immediate comment from Israel, which typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.
![](https://www.ariananews.af/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Israel-strikes-.jpg)
Multiple Israeli strikes on Syria's Hama countryside late on Sunday killed at least four civilians, Syrian state media reported, with sources saying the attacks targeted a major military research center.
Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians and soldiers, Israel has escalated its strikes on Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria and also struck Syrian army air defences and some Syrian forces, Reuters reported.
A local health official quoted by Syria's state news agency said 13 people were also injured, including several critically, following Sunday's strikes in the vicinity of the city of Misyaf, with ambulances still ferrying the wounded.
Two regional intelligence sources said a major military research centre for chemical arms production located near Misyaf was hit several times. It is believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production, read the report.
Syria's state media also reported that the strikes caused two fires, which firefighters were working to extinguish.
There has been no immediate comment from Israel, which typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.
In the most high-profile attack on Syria since the war in Gaza began, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's embassy in April, a strike that Iran said killed seven military advisers, including three senior commanders.
World
Thirteen Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, WAFA says
In a separate incident, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
![](https://www.ariananews.af/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Gaza-airstrike-3.jpg)
At least 13 Palestinians were killed and 15 wounded in Israeli strikes on a school sheltering refugees and a residential building in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority's official news agency WAFA reported early on Saturday.
At least eight of the dead were in refugee tents at Halima al-Sa'diyya School in Jabalia in northern Gaza, WAFA said.
The Israeli army said in a statement it had "conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control centre... embedded inside a compound that previously served as the 'Halima al-Sa'diyya' School in the northern Gaza Strip."
In a separate incident, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered Oct. 7 last year when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,800 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
According to the United Nations, at least 1.9 million people across the Gaza Strip are internally displaced, including some uprooted more than 10 times.
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