Plane Crashes into Belo Horizonte Building, Killing 2

A small single-engine plane crashed into a residential building in the Silveira neighborhood of Belo Horizonte, southeastern Brazil, on Monday afternoon, killing the pilot and copilot while seriously injuring two other occupants aboard. No residents in the building were harmed.

The Embraer EMB721C aircraft, a 1979 model, departed Pampulha Airport at 12:16 p.m. local time carrying four people, according to fire department officials. The pilot reported difficulties during takeoff to the airport's control tower. Video footage captured the plane flying low over rooftops, circling the area, and then striking between the third and fourth floors of a three-story building before its wreckage came to rest in the property's parking lot. Emergency services arrived at the scene by 12:25 p.m.

Fire Lieutenant Raul described the impact to reporters: "The aircraft hit between the third and fourth floors, in the stairwell. If it had hit the sides, it could have struck some residences; those apartments were occupied. What we saw was the structure of the aircraft projected inside the stairwell, without hitting any other apartments."

Avani Soares, a resident of the building, recounted the chaos:...