The plane was flying from Campinas, in neighboring Sao Paulo state, and broke up mid-air and crashed at around 10:30am in the mining town of Itapeva, according to the AFP report, quoting firefighters.
Firefighters "found seven dead victims [who were] on board the aircraft," the department said in an updated statement before announcing earlier that three bodies had been found.Images taken by locals — which show the wreckage of the plane shortly after falling on the side of a hill covered with grass and trees, circulated on social networks and Brazilian media.This plane crash comes as in September last year, 14 people were killed during a small plane crash in Amazon.Amazon state Governor Wilson Lima had wrote on his social media post that twelve passengers and two crew were killed in the accident, that occurred in the northern town of Barcelos — a tourist destination.The plane was an 18-passenger EMB-110, a twin-engine turboprop manufactured by Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer, reported a news site G1.It had been travelling from the state capital, Manaus, to Barcelos, about a 90-minute flight.Located on the Rio Negro, an Amazon tributary, it is bordered by several national parks and other protected areas.News site UOL said at that time that the passengers were Brazilians travelling to the region for sport fishing, citing state security secretary Vinicius Almeida.Earlier the same year, an aviation incident took place in the dense forests of the Amazon which killed at least three people including a mother of surviving children, who struggled to be alive in the forest for more than a month.The plane — a Cessna 206 — was carrying seven people on a route between Araracuara, in Amazonas province, and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, when it issued a Mayday alert due to engine failure in the early hours of May 1.