Crash victims’ sad trip home
Print Edition
AN honor guard played taps yesterday as members of Colombia’s military loaded five flight crew victims of an air crash that also killed most members of a soccer team onto a cargo plane for a trip back to their native Bolivia.
The five were all crew members on the chartered flight that crashed into the Andes mountains on Monday, killing 71 people, including players and coaches from Chapecoense, a small-town Brazilian soccer team heading to the Copa Sudamericana finals after a fairy-tale season.
The bodies of a group of 50 Brazilian victims were being repatriated later in the day on flights to Chapeco, the team’s hometown, where they would be received by their loved ones.
On Thursday, white sheets printed with the club’s green and white logo were placed over row upon row of caskets at a Medellin funeral home.
The somber farewell came as details emerged of alleged negligence on the part of the Bolivian charter company hired by the team to shuttle the players to Medellin for the finals.
Bolivian aviation officials said they were indefinitely suspending the LaMia airline after a recording of conversations between a pilot and air traffic control, as well as an account by a surviving flight attendant, indicated the plane ran out of fuel.
Two Bolivian aviation officials were removed from their jobs as experts investigate how officials signed off on a flight plan between Santa Cruz, Bolivia and Medellin that experts said the limited range British-built jet should never have attempted.
In Brazil, grieving relatives spoke out in disbelief.
Osmar Machado, whose son, Filipe, a Chapecoense defender, died on his father’s 66th birthday, questioned why the plane was transporting the team.
“Profit brings greed,” Machado said, speaking in Chapeco. “This plane ended 71 people.”
Williams Brasiliano, uncle of midfielder Arthur Maia, said the crash could have been avoided if the team had chosen a commercial flight and not a charter.
“Look how complicated that flight was going to be even if it had arrived,” Brasiliano said of the team’s itinerary, which included a flight from Sao Paulo to Bolivia on a commercial airliner before the ill-fated flight to Medellin. “I doubt that a bigger club would have done the same,” he added.
Chapecoense spokesman Andrei Copetti defended the decision, saying more than 30 teams had used the airline, including the teams of Argentina and Bolivia. He said his team had flown on its flights before.
“They had a good service then. It was the airline that got in touch with us because they have experience in doing these long flights in South America,” he said.
A recording of the flight’s final minutes showed the pilot repeatedly requested permission to land because of “fuel problems.” He was told another plane had priority and was instructed to wait.
As the jetliner circled, the pilot grew more desperate. “Complete electrical failure, without fuel,” he said. By then the controller had gauged the seriousness of the situation and told the other plane to abandon its approach to make way for the charter jet. It was too late.
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