Passenger ticketed to fly on VoePass jet that crashed in Brazil escaped death after losing track of time in airport

The VoePass air tragedy that occurred on Friday in Vinhedo, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, left 61 fatalities and the shocking testimony of survivor Adriano Assis, a passenger who did not manage to board the fateful flight.

Assis was scheduled to fly from Cascavel, in the state of Paraná, to the São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, but arrived at 9:40 a.m. confident that he would board a flight operated by LATAM Airlines.

However, upon arriving at the airport he discovered that the airline's counter was closed and that the flight had been reassigned to VoePass Linhas Aéreas.

“No one informed me about the change of airline,” he told the Brazilian newspaper, GloboNews.

As a result, the Brazil based traveler went to the cafeteria to wait for news. “I stayed drinking my coffee. "I waited, but neither the information panels nor the public address system said anything about the flight," Assis explained.

Time passed and, not hearing any announcement, he decided to go to the counter, around 10:40 a.m., where he found a fairly long line. When he was assisted, one of the employees informed him that the boarding process had closed an hour earlier and that he could no longer board the plane.

“I argued with him, but he was firm and didn't let me board. Today I want to thank you, because if you had made an exception, I would be one of the victims,” the man confessed with tears in his eyes.

VoePass flight 2283 crashed, for reasons that are still unknown, in a residential area of ​​the city of Vinhedo, less than 100 kilometers from its destination.

At first, the airline reported that 58 passengers and 4 crew members were traveling on the aircraft. However, hours later he reduced the death toll from 62 to 61 because Assis's name appeared on that initial list.

The accident happened in a matter of seconds. Less than an hour after reaching its destination, the aircraft plummeted 3,300 meters in one minute, according to Flightradar24, which monitors air traffic in real time. “The time from indication of a problem to final data received was 89 seconds,” the tracker states.

Regarding the plane, it is an ATR 72-500 model powered by two turboprop engines built by ATR 14 years ago. The aircraft was delivered to the Albanian company Belle Air in 2010 and VoePass, which is Brazil's fourth airline, acquired it in 2022.