A twin-engine Beech F90 King Air came down on Marques de São Vicente Avenue, a busy street on the northwest side of São Paulo, and hit a bus. The two people aboard the plane died. Six others were injured, authorities in the Brazilian city said.
The aircraft caught fire where it landed. Reuters reported that the bodies of the two occupants were badly burned before officials could reach them. São Paulo’s governor praised the first responders for bringing the scene under control.
No cause has been given. The accounts so far say nothing about where the plane had come from, who was flying it or what went wrong in the air.
How risky are small planes?
The crash came barely a week after the collision between a regional American Airlines flight and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in late January, which killed everyone aboard both aircraft.
Small aircraft are far deadlier per hour in the air than airliners, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The figure cited from PCVA Law is around 2.3 deaths per 100,000 flight hours for small planes, against about 0.01 for commercial flights. Pilot error is the most common cause of small-plane crashes, accounting for around 75% of them.
Even so, the same account points out that a person’s chance of dying or being seriously hurt in a car is much higher than in a small airplane. On this São Paulo street, though, the people hurt were on the ground, and one of the vehicles hit was a bus.
