Voepass Flight 2283 was a scheduled domestic Brazilian passenger flight from Cascavel to Guarulhos. On August 9, 2024, the ATR 72 serving the flight crashed in Vinhedo, São Paulo State. The aircraft was flying at an altitude of 17,000 ft (5,200 m) prior to stalling and entering a flat spin with a rapid descent at around 13:21 BRT.
All 62 people on board died. The crash was the deadliest aviation accident in Brazil since TAM Airlines Flight 3054 on July 17, 2007. The Brazilian Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center (CENIPA) launched an investigation following the crash. Aviation experts speculated that ice buildup could have been a factor. Both flight recorders were recovered and analyzed by CENIPA, who issued a preliminary report confirming the pilots faced difficulties with icing buildup and de-icing attempts.
In its final report, issued in July 2026, CENIPA concluded that the accident was caused by a combination of icing, several pilot errors, lack of proper maintenance procedures and poor safety culture of the airline as a whole, which was characterised by informality and routine normalization of deviance, which often led pilots, dispatchers and maintenance personnel to engage in unsafe operational procedures. Additionally, ANAC, Brazil's civil aviation authority, was also found to have contributed to the accident due to its ineffective regulation and oversight of Voepass' safety shortcomings.
The aircraft involved, registered as PS-VPB, was a 14-year-old twin-engine turboprop ATR 72-500 with serial number 908, powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127M engines. It has logged 17,359 flight hours and was acquired by Voepass in September 2022 from Indonesian carrier Pelita Air Service.
In command was Captain Danilo Santos Romano, aged 35, and his co-pilot was First Officer Humberto Alencar e Silva, aged 61. The flight attendants were Débora Soper Ávila, aged 28, and Rubia Silva de Lima, aged 41. All passengers and crew were Brazilian. Four passengers were dual citizens, three Venezuelan, and one Portuguese. Twenty-seven of the passengers were residents of Cascavel.
The victims included eight doctors, including six oncologists who were traveling to a cancer conference in São Paulo, four professors from Western Paraná State University, two staff members of the Federal University of Technology – Paraná, and two children. At least 10 ticketed passengers failed to board the flight because they were waiting at the wrong gate.
The aircraft departed Cascavel, Paraná at 11:58 local time to Guarulhos, São Paulo. In the area of the accident, there was an active SIGMET advisory for severe icing from 12,000 to 21,000 feet (3,700 to 6,400 m). Meteorological reports at the time of the accident indicated that areas of turbulence, thunderstorms, and icing were present in areas surrounding the accident. The Brazilian Air Force said that the flight did not declare an emergency.
According to Flightradar24, the aircraft was cruising at 17,000 feet (5,200 m) when, at 13:21 local time, the aircraft experienced a brief loss of altitude and then briefly regained altitude. Shortly thereafter, the aircraft entered what appeared to be a flat spin and a steep and terminal descent. The last data transmission and loss of radar contact occurred at 13:22, before the accident. ADS-B data indicated that the aircraft had reached a maximum vertical descent rate of 24,000 feet per minute (120 m/s).
Firefighters reported that the plane crashed in Vinhedo, São Paulo, 76 kilometres (47 mi) northwest of the city of São Paulo. The plane crashed near a condominium in the Capela neighborhood. Despite earlier reports of several houses being hit by the plane, it crashed in the front yard of a house in a gated community, and nobody on the ground was killed or injured. Videos of the aircraft before it crashed showed it in a downward flat spin, in a slight nose-down orientation, and were widely shared on social media. Brazilian television news channel GloboNews broadcast aerial footage from around the area of the accident site, showing fire and smoke rising from the aircraft's wreckage.
All 62 people on board were killed, along with a dog brought on board by the Venezuelan passengers. Most of the bodies found in the accident site were charred, making the identification of the victims difficult. An eyewitness reported seeing three bodies ejected from the plane and falling into a backyard; this was later refuted by firefighters, who stated that no bodies had been ejected and all were seated during the crash.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was attending the launch of the frigate Tamandaré when he received news of the accident, and requested a moment of silence for those on board.
Later that evening, Lula declared three days of national mourning in response to the accident. The governors of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, and Paraná, Ratinho Júnior, announced that they would return from an event in Espírito Santo. Flight 2283 was the first fatal accident in Brazilian commercial aviation since Noar Linhas Aéreas Flight 4896 in 2011, and the first involving Voepass since its establishment in 1995. The crash was the deadliest in Brazil since TAM Airlines Flight 3054 in July 2007.
The Mayor of Cascavel Leonaldo Paranhos offered to make available a conference center as a venue for a collective wake for victims of the crash, while football player Marcos attended the funeral of Captain Romano in São Paulo on 12 August, having been regarded as one of the latter's heroes. The Brazilian Air Force transported the remains of several victims to their respective communities.
José Luiz Felício Filho, president of Voepass, released a statement on Instagram expressing his condolences to the families and friends of passengers and crew members who died on Flight 2283.
On social media, Leonardo Ferreira, a cancer researcher, was widely named as one of the passengers. The Brazilian College of Radiology and Imaging Diagnosis published an obituary and conspiracy theories spread about how big pharma had engineered his supposed death. Ferreira confirmed he was not dead; nobody with that name had been on the aircraft's passenger list.
On 11 March 2025, the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) suspended the operating license of Voepass, citing the airline's "inability to solve irregularities identified during the supervision, as well as the violation of previously established conditions for the continuity of the operation within the required safety standards".
On 2 August 2025, an anonymous former employee of Voepass was reported by G1 as claiming that a pilot who had piloted PS-VPB the night before the accident had verbally reported a fault in its de-icing system, but it was not included in the technical log book, which, as per ANAC regulations, would have prevented the aircraft from flying before the issue had been resolved. The former employee said that the company's leadership routinely pressured staff to avoid grounding aircraft for maintenance.
On 6 August 2026, the Brazilian federal police formally accused 16 people of alleged malpractice, omission and negligence. Amongst the accused was the owner and president José Luiz Felicio Filho.