Friday, August 15, 2014

Socialist Presidential Candidate Campos Dies in Plane Crash in Brazil

8/15/2014


SAO PAULO – Socialist presidential candidate Eduardo Campos was killed in a plane crash on Wednesday in Santos, a city in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state, party officials told Efe.

The Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) leader and several members of his campaign team were aboard a small plane that crashed in a residential area in Santos.

No one aboard the plane survived and at least 10 people on the ground were injured, fire department spokesmen said.

The 49-year-old Campos, who was third in the polls ahead of the Oct. 5 election, boarded the plane in Rio de Janeiro, where he was interviewed by a national television network on Tuesday night.

The presidential candidate was heading to Santos for a campaign event.

The plane went down around 10:00 a.m. in Santos, a city about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Sao Paulo.

Firefighters, police and ambulances responded to the crash.

The fire department initially said a helicopter had gone down in the neighborhood, but air force spokesmen told Efe the aircraft was a Cessna 560XL that had taken off from Santos Dumond Airport in Rio de Janeiro.

At least three houses were damaged and video shot by residents showed flames inside some of the structures.


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