A Brazilian man narrowly escaped death after an airline worker stopped him from boarding a passenger plane that later killed 61 people.
According to Brazil’s TV Globo news outlet, Adriano Assis had made a booking error and arrived at his Voepass flight from Cascavel to Guarulhos too late. Although the latter presented his case, an airline employee just dismissed him.
“Normally there is always someone at the airport counter but there was no one,” Assis said. ”So at that point I argued with him and so forth, and that was it. And he saved my life.”
The flight manifest showed that Assis was the fifty-eighth person who did not board. After hearing of the crash, Assis looked for the airline employee before embracing him tightly.
“I hugged him because he did his job. If he hadn’t done his job, maybe I wouldn’t be doing this interview today,” Assis said shaking as he spoke emotionally. “I spoke out of anger but this guy—his name I don’t know—actually saved my life.”
The aircraft ATR-72, belonging to Voepass Linhas Aéreas, was flying from Cascavel in Paraná to Guarulhos in São Paulo according to G1 website which quoted information from Voepass.
Brazil’s TV GloboNews aired footage that showed a huge area consumed by fire, with smoke coming out of what seemed like the plane’s hull. In other video images it could be seen how the airplane started spiraling down until it crashed.
