Passengers say they missed the doomed Brazilian airline flight due to a booking mix-up

Two would-be passengers say they cheated death Friday after a mix-up led to missing their flight aboard the doomed VoePass airliner that crashed in Brazil, killing all 62 people on board.

The two passengers were scheduled to fly the twin-engine ATR 72 turboprop, but told a Brazilian news agent how they failed to make the flight, which ended up saving their lives. One of them said they were part of a group of 10 who missed the ill-fated flight.

One man, Adriano Assis, told GloboNews that he finished his shift at a hospital and arrived at the LATAM Airlines counter around 9:40 a.m. for the 11:56 a.m. flight from Cascavel to Guarulhos.

Passenger plane crashes in Brazil, killing all 62 on board, airline VOEPASS says

Assis said he noticed there were no agents at the LATAM office, so he grabbed a coffee while watching the departure and arrival screens for updates on Flight 2283.

“The microphone wasn’t saying anything, the panels weren’t saying anything about the flight,” he said.

He said he realized he had actually booked his flight with VoePass Airline, not LATAM. He then headed to a counter, but there was a huge line, and by the time he reached an agent, it was too late to get in.

“The guy said I’m not going to board anymore because it’s been an hour before boarding,” Assis said.

He said he asked the agent to allow him to board the flight, but the agent refused.

“I had a fight with him and stuff, and that was it, and he saved my life, man,” he told reporters as he teared up. “He did his job because… if he hadn’t… I might not have participated in this interview today, I’m sorry.”

VoePass Flight 2283 crashed in a residential area in the city of Vinhedo, carrying 57 passengers and four crew members, according to The Associated Press.

The footage showed the plane drifting down vertically, spiraling as it fell. The wreckage site showed a burning area with smoke coming from a wiped out fuselage of the plane. Firefighters, military police and the civil defense authority sent teams to the scene of the accident.

Another passenger, Jose Felipe, said he was part of a group of 10 people who made the same mistake.

“I thought I would go on LATAM, which was closed,” he told GloboNews.

“Thank God, we didn’t get on that plane. We didn’t know it would be with that company (VoePass), we thought it would be with LATAM, and LATAM was closed. We arrived really early (at the airport) and I waited, I waited and nothing.”

When he found an agent, he said he pressured the worker to get him on the flight.

“Sir, I have to get on this plane. I have to go,” Felipe told the airline worker, who refused to board him, citing that he had exceeded the boarding time limit.

“And he said there’s no way and what I can do for you is reschedule your ticket,” Felipe said.

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The Capela neighborhood where the plane crashed is far from the city center, home to 77,000 residents.

At an event in southern Brazil on Friday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked the crowd to stand and observe a minute’s silence as he shared the news.

VoePass staff at Guarulhos airport told The Associated Press that the company is notifying the victims’ family members and supporting them in a private room at the airport.

He said it appeared all passengers and crew on board had died, without elaborating on how that information was obtained.

Aviation expert and former pilot Arthur Rosenberg said video of the plane appeared to show the airliner stalling in midair.

“A stall is when the airplane is not moving through the air fast enough, forward, to be able to maintain lift to stay in the air,” he told Fox News Channel’s “The Story.” “The sound tells me there was something wrong with one or both engines.”

Radar data shows a “rapid descent” that could have been attributed to an engine failure or other malfunction, he said.

“It looked like it fell 17,000 feet in about two minutes,” Rosenberg said.

The airliner is a twin-engine ATR 72-500 turboprop, which is used for shorter flights.

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In a statement, the plane’s manufacturer, Franco-Italian ATR, said the company’s specialists were “fully committed to supporting both the investigation and the customer”.

The plane’s black box, or flight data recorder, was recovered by officials.

Fox News’ Greg Norman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.