Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 71 dead
|
| Rescue
workers search at the wreckage site of a chartered airplane that
crashed outside Medellin, Colombia, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016. The plane
was carrying the Brazilian first division soccer club Chapecoense team
that was on it's way for a Copa Sudamericana final match against
Colombia's Atletico Nacional. |
LA UNION,
Colombia (AP) -- Colombian authorities searched for answers
Tuesday into the crash of a chartered airliner that slammed into the
Andes mountains while transporting a Brazilian soccer team whose
Cinderella story had won it a spot in the finals of one of South
America's most prestigious regional tournaments. All but six of the 77
people on board were killed.
The British
Aerospace 146 short-haul plane declared an emergency and lost radar
contact just before 10 p.m. Monday (0300 GMT Tuesday), according to
Colombia's aviation agency. It said the plane's black boxes had been
recovered and were being analyzed.
The
aircraft, which departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was carrying the
Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil for Wednesday's first leg
of the two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of
Medellin. Twenty-one Brazilian journalists were also on board the
flight.
Colombian officials initially said the
plane suffered an electrical failure but there was also heavy rainfall
at the time of the crash. Authorities also said they were not ruling out
the possibility, relayed to rescuers by a surviving flight attendant,
that the plane ran out of fuel minutes before its scheduled landing at
Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin.
Whatever the cause, the emotional pain of Colombia's deadliest air tragedy in two decades was felt across the soccer world.
Expressions
of grief poured in as South America's federation canceled all scheduled
matches in a show of solidarity, Real Madrid's squad interrupted its
training for a minute of silence and Argentine legend Diego Maradona
sent his condolences to the victims' families over Facebook.
Brazil's
top teams offered to loan the small club players next season so they
can rebuild following the sudden end to a fairy tale season that saw
Chapecoense reach the tournament final just two years after making it
into the first division for the first time since the 1970s. "It is the
minimum gesture of solidarity that is within our reach," the teams said
in a statement.
Sportsmanship also prevailed,
with Atletico Nacional asking that the championship title be given to
its rival, whose upstart run had electrified soccer-crazed Brazil.
Rescuers
working through the night were initially heartened after pulling three
people alive from the wreckage. But as the hours passed, heavy fog and
stormy weather grounded helicopters and slowed efforts to reach the
crash site.
At daybreak, dozens of bodies
scattered across a muddy mountainside were collected into white bags.
They were then loaded onto several Black Hawk helicopters that had to
perform a tricky maneuver to land on the crest of the Andes mountains.
The plane's fuselage appeared to have broken into two, with the nose
facing downward into a steep valley.
Officials
initially reported 81 people were on board the flight, but later
revised that to 77, saying four people on the flight manifest did not
get on the plane.
Images broadcast on local
television showed three of the six survivors on stretchers and connected
to IVs arriving at a hospital in ambulances. Chapecoense defender Alan
Ruschel was in the most serious condition, and was later transported to
another facility to undergo surgery for a spinal fracture. Teammates
Helio Zampier and Jakson Follmann also suffered multiple trauma
injuries, with doctors having to amputate the goalkeeper Follmann's
right leg.
A journalist traveling with the
team was recovering from surgery and two Bolivian crew members were in
stable condition, hospital officials said.
The
aircraft is owned by LaMia, a charter company that started off in
Venezuela but later relocated to Bolivia, where it was certified to
operate last January. Despite such apparently limited experience the
airline has a close relationship with several premier South American
squads.
Earlier this month, the plane involved
in Monday's crash transported Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and the
Argentina national team from Brazil following a World Cup qualifier
match. The airliner also appears to have transported the national squads
of Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela over the last three months, according
to a log of recent activity provided by Flightradar24.com.
Before
being taken offline, LaMia's website said it operated three 146 Avro
short-haul jets made by British Aerospace, with a maximum range of
around 2,965 kilometers (1,600 nautical miles) - about the same as the
distance between Santa Cruz and Medellin..
Hans
Weber, a longtime adviser to U.S. aviation authorities, said the
aircraft's range deserves careful investigation. He noted that the air
distance between cities is usually measured by the shortest route but
planes rarely fly in a straight line - pilots may steer around
turbulence or change course for other reasons.
Given
the model of the plane and that it was flying close to capacity, "I
would be concerned that the pilots may have been cutting it too close,"
Weber said.
Bolivia's civil aviation agency
said the aircraft picked up the Brazilian team in Santa Cruz, where the
players had arrived on a commercial flight from Sao Paulo. Spokesman
Cesar Torrico said the plane underwent an inspection before departing
for Colombia and reported no problems.
"We
can't rule out anything. The investigation is ongoing and we're going to
await the results," said Gustavo Vargas, a retired Bolivian air force
general who is president of the airline.
Colombian authorities said they hope to interview the Bolivian flight attendant who relayed the fuel concerns on Wednesday.
Moments
before the flight departed, the team's coaching staff gave an interview
to a Bolivian television station in which they praised the airline,
saying it brought them good fortune when it flew them to Colombia last
month for the championship's quarterfinals, which they won.
"Now
we're going to do this new trip and we hope they bring us good luck
like they did the first time," athletic director Mauro Stumpf told the
Gigavision TV network.
The team, from the
small Brazilian agro-industrial city of Chapeco, was in the midst of a
breakout season. It advanced last week to the Copa Sudamericana finals
after defeating some of the region's top teams, including Argentina's
San Lorenzo and Independiente, as well as Colombia's Junior.
The
team is so modest that tournament organizers ruled that its 22,000-seat
arena was too small to host the final match, which was moved to a
stadium 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the north, in the city of
Curitiba.
The team won over fans across Brazil
with its spectacular run to the finals, with some even taking up a
campaign online to move the final match to Rio de Janeiro's iconic
Maracana stadium, where the 2014 World Cup finals were played.
The
tragedy of so many young and talented players' lives and dreams cut
short brought an outpouring of support far beyond Brazil's borders.
Atletico Nacional said in a statement it was offering its title to the
team, saying the accident "leaves an indelible mark on the history of
Latin American and world soccer."
Closer to home, fans mourned the terrible loss.
"This
morning I said goodbye to them and they told me they were going after
the dream, turning that dream into reality," Chapecoense board member
Plinio De Nes told Brazil's TV Globo. "The dream was over early this
morning."
