Authorities had been searching for Rodrigo Boer Machado, 29, for five days after he took off on a routine flight in Cessna aircraft, registration PT-JCZ,on Friday December 20
Brazil: Search party finds plane crash wreckage on Christmas day
The bodies of a missing pilot and his passenger were found on Christmas Day – in the wreckage of a horrific plane crash.
Authorities had been searching for Rodrigo Boer Machado, 29, for five days after he took off on a routine flight on Friday December 20. Alarms were raised on Saturday December 21 when the Cessna aircraft, registration PT-JCZ, did not present a flight plan or appear on air traffic control’s radar.
A video shows horrific scenes at the crash site located in a deeply-wooded area of the Amazon rainforest. The 29-year-old pilot had told his family that he had been hired to fly from Porto Velho, Brazil to Manaus in the same country.
Machado was accompanied on the hour and a half flight across Brazil by a 27-year-old passenger named Breno Braga Leite. The last GPS location for the plane was over the southeast region of Manicor.
Search parties spent several days trying to find the pair, as well as the plane until finally discovering the wreckage on Christmas Day. The search was conducted by the FAB with help from the civil police, military police, fire department and sniffer dogs.
The location of the plane crash was difficult to access due to the rainforest. Both victims are believed to have died due to injuries sustained in the crash. Machado’s family travelled to Amazonas from S o Jos do Rio Preto to retrieve his body. He will be buried in São Paulo.
It comes after a plane crash on Christmas Day killed 38 people and injured the 29 survivors. The Embraer jet came down in Kazakhstan, after it was allegedly “hit by a Putin air defence missile”. Russia faces criticism amid the allegations it shot down Wednesday’s jet, which was destined for Grozny in Putin’s nation. Grozny is the capital of the Chechnya republic, a Russian region controlled by Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov which regularly sends troops to fight in the war against Ukraine.