MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Planes, buses, trucks, and automobiles crash during the weekend

Galeazzi's aircraft fell in a densely populated area

At least ten people died and 17 others were injured when a private plane owned and flown by businessman Luiz Cláudio Galeazzi, 61, fell in a densely populated area on Sunday minutes after taking off from the Canela Aeroclube bound for Florianópolis, carrying ten passengers onboard, none of whom survived, Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite confirmed. At least 17 people were taken to the Gramado Hospital for smoke inhalation.

The Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa) has already started investigations to clarify the causes of the accident.

The pilot was CEO of Galeazzi & Associados, a company founded by his father, Claudio Galeazzi, who passed away last year due to cancer. Founded in 1995, the company specializes in restructuring businesses in Brazil and abroad, particularly in agriculture and financial services.

The crash came just a few days after another private aircraft overran the runway at the San Fernando airfield north of Buenos Aires. The Challenger 300 private jet had taken off from Punta del Este, Uruguay, and hit slums near the air terminal. The pilot and copilot were both killed.

To round up a bloody weekend, a collision between a bus and a truck on Brazil's BR-116 highway in Minas Gerais in the early hours of Saturday morning left at least 41 people dead and counting as relief efforts kept retrieving bodies Sunday from the site's crash.

A large block of granite broke loose from the lorry and hit the bus traveling in the opposite direction, which caught fire, after which a car collided with the truck and its three occupants were seriously injured. Investigators are still looking in Espírito Santo and Bahia for the lorry's driver who remained at large after being deemed criminally responsible because his unit was overweight. According to the Civil Police, he has a suspended driver's license after being stopped a few years ago in the Minas Gerais town of Mantena and refusing to take the breathalyzer test.