Two would-be passengers with tickets to fly on the doomed flight that crashed in Brazil Friday, killing all 62 people on board, have revealed that they avoided death thanks to travel hiccups.
One of the extremely fortunate travelers, Adriano Assis, told Brazilian outlet GloboNews that the only reason he was still alive was because he was confused which airline he was flying for his 11:56 a.m. trip from Cascavel to Guarulhos, according to Fox News.
Assis, who had wrapped up a late night shift at a hospital before arriving at the airport around 9:40 a.m., said he had believed he was flying via LATAM Airlines, but after seeing there were no agents at the counter, decided to get a coffee and kill time.
Eventually, after not seeing Flight 2238 on the arrival or departure signs, Assis realized he had booked his trip on VoePass and rushed to the gate. By the time he had reached the counter, he said, an agent said it was too late for him to board the plane.
“I argued with him and stuff, and that was it, and he saved my life, man,” he told the outlet, welling up with tears.
A second Flight 2388 passenger, Jose Felipe, said he was part of a group of ten that made the same mixup between the airlines, thinking they had been scheduled to travel via LATAM Airlines.
“Thank God, we didn’t get on that plane,” he said, adding that when he realized the mistake and tried to pressure an agent to let him board the flight, the worker refused to budge.
VoePass Flight 2283, which carried 57 passengers and four crew members on an ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop, crashed in the city of Vinhedo Friday, leaving no survivors.
The horrifying descent was caught on shocking video, which depicted the plane spiraling to the ground. Imagery of the crashed sight showed flames and smoke emerging from the plane’s wreckage.
The Guarulhos-bound plane left Cascavel at 11:56 a.m. local time Friday, flying for roughly hour and a half without an issues, officials said.
The crew did not call for help or report any problematic weather conditions.
There was also no signs the crew tried to contact the controllers at nearby airports, Ports and Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho told reporters Friday night.
“The entire crew was competent,” VoePass CEO Eduardo Busch said at a press conference, according to CNN.
The plane’s black box containing voice recordings and flight data was recovered from the crash site, São Paulo Public Security Secretary Guilherme Derrite said.
The box’s contents will be analyzed to try to determine what caused the plane to spiral over 13,000 in just a minute.
Among the dead were Captain Danilo Santos Romano, 35, a pilot of ten years, an elderly couple, and Rafael Fernando dos Santos, 41, who was traveling with his three-year-old daughter, Liz Ibba dos Santos, 3.
With Post wires.