Brazil probes plane crash that kills Supreme Court judge

Brazil's Air Force, Federal Police and the Federal Prosecution Office are investigating a plane crash that killed Supreme Court Judge Teori Zavascki, local media said on Friday.

Zavascki was overseeing cases related to Operation Carwash, a wide-ranging investigation into kickbacks and bribery involving government contracts with private companies.

He was currently reviewing the testimony of dozens of executives from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which was deeply involved in the corruption scheme.

A plane carrying Zavascki and four others crashed Thursday afternoon off the coast of Paraty, Rio de Janeiro state. There were no survivors.

Zavascki was about to validate the list and release the testimony to the public, potentially ruining the careers of several major politicians. He was confirmed last year to have received death threats for his role in the investigation.

The crash is widely seen in Brazil as deliberate incident, even though the weather at the time of the accident diminished visibility and Paraty airport poses a difficult landing under those circumstances.

The Air Force is usually in charge of investigating plane crashes in Brazil, but in this case parallel investigations have been launched by the Federal Police and Federal Prosecution Office.

The plane the judge was traveling in was not legally required to have a flight recorder, which will make the investigators' work more difficult. Endit