Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos died Wednesday when his campaign jet slammed into houses in Santos city in bad weather, killing all seven people on board and setting buildings alight.
Campos, a 49-year-old socialist who had been running third in opinion polls for the October election, was flying to Sao Paulo to record a TV segment when his Cessna 560XL came down, breaking into pieces and igniting a large fire after impact.
President Dilma Rousseff, who is standing for a second four-year term, declared a state of national mourning and suspended her campaign for three days.
“All of Brazil is in mourning. We lost a great Brazilian today, Eduardo Campos. We lost a great comrade,” the leftist president said in a statement.
Campos, a popular former governor of the northeastern state of Pernambuco, was married with five children, the youngest just six months old.
His plane was en route from Rio de Janeiro’s Santos Dumont airport to Guaruja airport outside Sao Paulo, according to air force spokesperson Pedro Luis Farcic.
“As it was preparing to land, the plane fell due to bad weather. Air traffic control then lost contact with the aircraft,” he said.
All seven people on the plane died, the air force said.
In addition to Campos, the plane had two pilots, two advisors, a photographer and a videographer aboard.
Pieces of the destroyed aircraft were strewn around the crash site in a bustling residential neighborhood of Santos, a port on the Atlantic about 75 kilometers (45 miles) from Sao Paulo.
Flaming piles of rubble sent up a large column of smoke, and several houses were on fire.