Their job was saving lives. They lost their own in Brazil’s horrifying plane crash

RIO DE JANEIRO — Arianne Risso worked every day to help her patients fight cancer. That made it even more heartbreaking when her life, along with those of seven other doctors, ended abruptly. after a plane fell from the sky in Brazil.

He boarded the unfortunate flight on Friday in the city of Cascavel, in the state of Paraná, bound for the Guarulhos international airport in Sao Paulo. It crashed in the city of Vinhedo, and images of the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop sinking while spinning flat horrified people across Brazil.

It crashed into the backyard of a home inside a gated community and became a burning wreck. All 62 people on board died, including eight doctors, according to a statement from the Paraná Medical Council. Risso and at least one colleague were headed to an oncology conference to improve their knowledge of a disease that kills tens of thousands of Brazilians each year.

“They were people used to saving lives and now they lost theirs in such tragic circumstances,” Paraná Governor Ratinho Júnior told reporters in Vinhedo on Friday, adding that he had friends on the doomed plane. “It’s a sad day.”

Risso’s cousin, Stephany Albuquerque, recalled in a telephone interview that the two often played together when she was young. Even then Risso wanted to be a doctor and, as he grew up, he devoted himself so intensely to his studies that he rarely went out into the city. Medicine was his calling.

“Arianne treated terminally ill people at a time in their lives when they were struggling. But Arianne was always available and did everything with a lot of love,” Albuquerque told The Associated Press by phone from Florida, where she now lives. “She wasn’t the kind of doctor who would tell the patient, ‘This is your illness, take this.’ No, Arianne took care of people. …She gave her personal phone number to patients.”

Risso, 34, was flying with her colleague Mariana Belim, 31. The two had been in residence at the Cascavel cancer hospital, and a statement from the institution praised them for the conscientiousness, care and respect with which they treated their patients.

“It is not surprising that we often receive praise for both of them. “His love for the profession was very clear,” the hospital said.

Willian Rodrigo Feistler, a general practitioner who grew up in Cascavel, knew six people who died in the accident and was particularly close to Belim, with whom he studied and maintained a 15-year friendship.

“Mariana was serene and had a melancholic temperament, but very intelligent, empathetic and dedicated to her profession,” Feistler said by phone from Cascavel. She “she dedicated much of her life to medical studies and training. She had already specialized in clinical medicine and was completing her specialization in clinical oncology.”

José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, a recently retired doctor who also died in the fire, was one of Feistler’s professors during his university studies. He had a radiology clinic in Cascavel.

“I reviewed cases with him on several occasions. He was a receptive person who helped other doctors discuss cases to arrive at a diagnosis,” Feistler said.

Brazil’s Federal Council of Medicine said the loss of the doctors left the Brazilian medical world in mourning and expressed its solidarity with the friends and family of the victims. They left Cascavel in search of knowledge as a means to better treat their patients, according to the statement.

For now, there are more questions about the accident than answers. Metsul, one of Brazil’s most respected weather companies, said Friday that there were reports of severe icing in Sao Paulo state at the time of the accident. Local media cited experts who pointed to this as a potential cause, although others cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

Both “black boxes” of the plane… one with flight data and the other with cockpit audio – were recovered. The Air Force’s air accident research and prevention center began analyzing them in its laboratory in the country’s capital, Brasilia. Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho said the center was also opening a criminal investigation. The airline Voepass and the French-Italian manufacturer of ATR are collaborating on the investigations, they said in statements.

All of Brazil – but particularly the loved ones of the victims – is eager to know why these people were torn from this world.

“It was not God who took my daughter; She was not God, because he chose her to save lives,” Risso’s mother, Fatima Albuquerque, told reporters on Sunday. She said she attributed the crisis to profit-hungry capitalists and the negligence of the authorities.

Stephany Albuquerque echoed his outrage.

“I just hope the prosecutors investigate,” he said. “I hope justice is done, because that is the least my cousin and the other 61 people deserve.”