Eight cancer doctors ‘who dedicated their lives to saving others’ among the 62 passengers and crew dead on doomed Brazil flight that plunged from the sky and exploded in a fireball when they were on their way to conference

Eight cancer doctors were among the 62 passengers and crew who died when a Brazilian airliner plunged dramatically from the sky and exploded in a fireball.

Six leading oncologists and two resident medics, in their final year of training, were on their way from their home city of Cascavel to a cancer conference in Sao Paulo when the twin-engine turboprop ATR 72-500 VoePass Airline flight crashed into a gated community killing all on board on Friday.

Eduardo Baptistella of the Regional Medical Council said: ‘Unfortunately we received very sad news and were able to confirm the death of eight doctors. The doctors were going to an oncology conference. These were people who dedicated their lives to saving others.’

Some of the doctors’ names began to emerge last night including radiologist Leonel Ferreira, pediatric cancer expert Sarah Stella and Silvia Osaki.

Mr Baptistella said 15 doctors had been scheduled to take the two-hour doomed flight but seven had taken an earlier plane.

Six leading oncologists and two resident medics, in their final year of training, were on their way from their home city of Cascavel to a cancer conference in Sao Paulo when the plane crashed

The plane can be seen in a ‘death spiral’ before it crashed into a residential area on Friday 

A spokesman for Uopeccan Cancer Hospital in Cascavel confirmed two final-year resident oncology doctors, Arianne Risso, 28, and Mariana Belim, 29, had perished, adding: ‘It is with immense pain we can confirm the death of the clinical oncology residents.

‘There are no words to express the sadness we feel in the face of this great tragedy.’

VoePass flight 2283 crashed 50 miles north-west of Sao Paulo en route to the city’s Guarulhos International Airport.

The plane was at an altitude of 16,000ft when it went into a ‘death spiral’ and plummeted to the ground in fifty seconds. 

Eyewitnesses who videoed the crash said it appeared to stall before circling to the ground and bursting into flames at around 1.30pm local time (5.30pm BST).

Last night the airline confirmed ten people who were waiting at the wrong boarding gate in Cascavel miraculously missed the flight.

The plane was on its way from Cascavel to Guarulhos cruising at 17,000 feet when it began the sudden descent

Pictured: The wreckage of the Voepass Airlines plane that crashed in Brazil 

Debris is pictured as emergency personnel work at the site of a plane crash on Friday

A dramatic video from the scene on Friday showed a Voepass plane falling from the sky as it plummeted behind a cluster of trees near houses, followed by a large plume of black smoke

Captain Danilo Santos Romano was named today as the first victim of the horror crash in the city of Vinhedo

Mr Romano worked as a pilot for more than a decade and joined Voepass Airlines in 2022, his LinkedIn profile shows

One man, who did not give his name, told news channel CNN: ‘The monitor was showing the wrong gate and there were ten of us sitting there and we realised we were in the wrong place. 

‘We ran to the right gate and I asked one of the agents, “Girl, put me on this plane, I have to go, I have to go”, but she said: “No, you are too late and I can only reschedule your flight”.’

Friends of the pilot Danilo Romano, 35, who had ten years flying experience, described him as ‘an amazing professional’ who was ‘always smiling and willing to help’.

While the pilot made no mayday call, aviation experts say the plane may have experienced sudden icing on its wings.

The flight’s black box has been recovered in good condition.