RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Arianne Risso worked every day to help her patients fight cancer. That made it all the more heartbreaking when her life – along with that of seven other doctors – came to an abrupt end after a plane fell from the sky in Brazil.

She boarded the fatal flight on Friday in the city of Cascavel, in the state of Parana, bound for Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport. It crashed in the town of Vinhedo, and images of the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop plunging into a flat spin terrified people across Brazil.

It slammed into the backyard of a home in a gated community and turned into a fiery wreck. All 62 people on board were killed, among them the eight doctors, according to a statement from the Parana Medical Council. Risso and at least one colleague were on their way to an oncology conference to sharpen their knowledge of a disease that kills tens of thousands of Brazilians each year.

“They were people who were used to saving lives, and now they lost theirs in such tragic circumstances,” Parana Governor Ratinho Júnior told reporters in Vinhedo on Friday, adding that he had friends on the doomed plane. “It’s a sad day.”

Risso’s cousin, Stephany Albuquerque, recalled in a telephone interview that the two often played together when she was young. Even then, Risso wanted to become a doctor, and when she got older, she devoted herself so intensely to her studies that she rarely went out into town. Medicine was her calling.

“Arianne treated people who were terminally ill at a time in their lives when they were struggling. But Arianne was always available and did everything with a lot of love,” Albuquerque told The Associated Press by phone from Florida, where she now lives. “She don’t be the kind of doctor who tells the patient, “This is your disease, take this.” No, Arianne took care of people. … She would give out her personal phone number to patients.”

Risso, 34, flew with her colleague Mariana Belim, 31. The two had been in residency at the Cascavel Cancer Hospital, and a statement from the institution praised them for the conscientiousness, care and respect with which they treated their patients.

“It is no wonder that praise for both of them often reaches us. Their love for the profession was very evident,” the hospital said.

Willian Rodrigo Feistler, a general practitioner who grew up in Cascavel, knew six people who died in the crash and was particularly close to Belim, with whom he studied and had maintained a 15-year friendship.

“Mariana was calm with a melancholic temperament, but very intelligent, empathetic and devoted to her profession,” Feistler said by phone from Cascavel. “She devoted much of her life to study and medical training. She had already specialized in clinical medicine and was finishing her specialization in clinical oncology.”

José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, a recently retired doctor who also died in the burning wreckage, was one of Feistler’s teachers during his undergraduate studies. He had an X-ray clinic in Cascavel.

“I went through cases with him on several occasions. He was a receptive person who helped other doctors in discussing cases to reach diagnoses,” Feistler said.

Brazil’s Federal Medical Council said the loss of the doctors left Brazil’s medical world in mourning and expressed its solidarity with the victims’ friends and relatives. They ventured out of Cascavel in search of knowledge as a way to better treat their patients, its statement said.

Currently, there are more questions about the crash than answers. Metsul, one of Brazil’s most respected meteorological companies, said on Friday that there were reports of severe icing in Sao Paulo state around the time of the crash. Local media cited experts pointing to that as a potential cause, although others cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

Both planes’ “black boxes” — one with flight data and the other with cockpit audio — was recovered. The Air Force’s Center for the Investigation and Prevention of Air Accidents began analyzing them at its laboratory in the nation’s capital, Brasilia. Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho said the center also opened a criminal investigation. Airline Voepass and Franco-Italian ATR manufacturer are assisting with investigations, they said in statements.

All of Brazil – but especially the loved ones of the victims – are eager to learn why these people were torn from this world.

“It was not God who took my daughter; it wasn’t God, because he chose her to save lives,” Risso’s mother, Fatima Albuquerque, told reporters on Sunday. She said she blamed the crash on profit-seeking capitalists and government negligence.

Stephany Albuquerque echoed her indignation.

“I just hope the prosecutors will investigate,” she said. “I hope justice is served, because that’s the least my cousin and the other 61 people deserve.”