10 members of the same family died when a small plane piloted by a Brazilian businessman crashed shortly after takeoff from Canela, in southern Brazil Sunday. Photo by Ana Gerez/EPA-EFE
Dec. 22 (UPI) — Ten members of a family are dead following a small plane crash near the city of Gramado in southern Brazil on Sunday, authorities said. Brazilian businessman Luiz Claudio Galeazzi was piloting the plane. His wife, three daughters and other family members were all killed, according to a statement from his company.
Witnesses said the small plane, a Cheyenne 400 turboprop, hit the chimney of a building in a commercial district in the popular tourist destination and injured 17 people on the ground, two seriously, the BBC reported.
The airplane crashed shortly after takeoff from the nearby city of Canela, striking the building’s chimney, and then a house before falling onto a furniture store, the Rio Grande do Sul state security secretariat said in a statement. ‘There are no survivors of the plane,’ Cleber dos Santos Lima of the state civil police said.
CCTV images from a nearby car park have been posted online showing the moment the plane turned into a fireball after crashing into the building. Media reports show drone footage of the crash’s aftermath.