A small plane plummeted from the sky and crashed into a Brazilian restaurant Friday morning, killing all four people aboard and erupting into a massive fireball that narrowly missed pedestrians on a residential street.
The Piper Malibu JetPROP took off from Capão da Canoa Airport around 10:35 a.m. local time on Friday, April 3, bound for Ibitinga in the state of São Paulo. Within minutes, the single-engine turboprop clipped a utility pole near the end of the runway and plunged into the Dom Inácio restaurant on Avenida Valdomiro Cândido dos Reis in Capão da Canoa, a seaside city on the coast of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil.
Security cameras captured the horrifying moment the plane, its nose angled sharply upward, slammed into the closed restaurant and exploded in a mushroom cloud of fire and thick black smoke. Footage shows the aircraft flying dangerously low over the residential area before impact, narrowly missing pedestrians and cyclists who scattered as the fireball erupted.
One person visible in the CCTV footage appeared to be near the impact site but managed to run away just as the plane crashed.
The four victims have been identified as pilots Nelio Maria Batista Pessanha and Renan Eduardo Saes, along with businesspeople Déborah Belanda Ortolani and Luis Antonio Ortolani, who worked as event management executives. All four died at the scene.
The plane had originally departed from Itápolis in São Paulo state, stopped to refuel at Forquilhinha airport in Santa Catarina, then continued to Capão da Canoa to pick up the two business passengers before the fatal takeoff.
Authorities from the Civil Defense of Rio Grande do Sul rushed to the crash site and confirmed the plane had “lost altitude and hit a restaurant that was closed,” according to Xinhua. Teams evacuated neighboring residences and isolated the area as emergency responders battled to bring the blaze under control.
In a stroke of fortune amid the tragedy, the Dom Inácio restaurant was closed at the time of the crash. No ground casualties were reported, though nearby homes sustained damage from the explosion and fire. A neighboring shop was also closed, preventing further loss of life.
The Fire Department, Military Police, city hall teams, and the CEEE electricity company all provided support at the scene. Sabrina Ribas, Communications Coordinator for the Civil Defense of Rio Grande do Sul, confirmed that neighboring residents were evacuated as a precautionary measure.
A witness described watching the crash unfold in real time. “It went up, but it didn’t fully climb; it went up, lost power, the engine was making a noise,” truck driver Silvio Dias Luiz Júnior told Jornal Nacional.
The single-engine aircraft, owned by Jetspeed Holding Ltda, was reportedly flying at low altitude when it began losing height, according to preliminary reports cited by Radio Gaúcha.
Rio Grande do Sul state governor Eduardo Leite expressed his condolences following the disaster. “I have been following, since the very first moments, together with the security forces, the full mobilization in responding to the incident,” Leite said. He added his solidarity with the families of the victims and the community of Capão da Canoa.
The general Institute of Forensics arrived at the scene to process evidence and recover the victims’ remains. The Municipality of Capão da Canoa, along with the Military Brigade, continued to maintain security around the crash site as the area remained cordoned off.
Brazil’s center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (CENIPA), a unit of the Brazilian Air Force, is now leading the investigation into what caused the crash. Authorities are examining why the aircraft clipped the pole during takeoff and what caused it to lose altitude so rapidly.
The Aviation Safety Network has added the incident to its database of aircraft accidents as investigators work to piece together the final moments of the flight.
The crash marks another tragic aviation accident in the region. A day earlier, four people died when a small Cessna 172 crashed in the central Mexican state of Puebla within minutes of takeoff from Hermanos Serdán International Airport. Three victims were pronounced dead at the scene, while a fourth succumbed to injuries at a hospital.
The dramatic footage from Capão da Canoa has circulated widely online, showing the terrifying near-miss with civilians on the street below and the subsequent explosion that engulfed the restaurant in flames. The images serve as a stark reminder of how quickly aviation disasters can unfold and the narrow margin between catastrophe and even greater tragedy.