By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Presidential candidate, Eduardo Campos, from the PSB (Socialist Party) was killed Wednesday in a plane crash in the coastal town of Santos, about forty miles from São Paulo city. The two-time governor of Pernambuco state was coming from Rio de Janeiro to conduct TV interviews and speak at a seminar about the Port of Santos.
According to the Brazilian officials, Campos’ plane lost contact with the air traffic tower moments after the pilot decided to do a go-around, due to poor visibility. The crash occurred in a residential area and at least six people were hurt and eight houses damaged.
The third-placed presidential hopeful in this October’s General Election, grew up in a politically-active household. His grandfather Miguel Arraes, exiled during Brazil’s dictatorship, was three-time governor of Pernambuco and one of the founders of the Socialist Party, while his mother, Ana Arraes is a superior court judge at the TCU (Federal Court of Accounts). Campos had chosen environmentalist Marina Silva as his running mate.
All during the afternoon Brazilian politicians conveyed their condolences to the family through social media. President Dilma Rousseff declared three days of national mourning and stated that “the country had lost a young political figure who had a promising future ahead of him.”
Rousseff’s leading opponent Aecio Neves of the PSDB (Social Democracy Party), and a close personal friend of Campos, cancelled all his campaign events for the next few days, calling it a “terrible loss”.
Campos, who turned 49 on Sunday, leaves a wife and five children, one of whom is only six months old. Two aides, a photographer, a video maker and two pilots also perished in the crash.
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