A man who was meant to board a passenger plane that crashed on the outskirts of São Paulo in Brazil credits an airline worker with saving his life after he was denied boarding at the gate.
Adriano Assis, from Rio De Janeiro, told Brazilian news outlet TV Globo that he narrowly missed the two hour flight from Cascavel to Guarulhos after an airline mix-up at the airport.
“I arrived at 9:40 a.m, and Latam was closed… so I waited to see if it would open,” Assis said, adding that he hadn’t realized he had actually booked his flight with the airline Voepass, not LATAM. “Normally, there is always someone at the airport counter, but there was no one.”
Assis didn’t realize his mistake until 10:41 a.m.—and by then, it was too late. He was refused entry, even after arguing with an airline worker to let him through.