75 dead in soccer team plane crash
Print Edition
A PLANE carrying a Brazilian first division soccer team crashed near Medellin while on its way to the finals of a South American championship, killing 75 people, Colombian officials said yesterday. They said six people survived.
The British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane, operated by a charter airline, declared an emergency and lost radar contact just before 10pm on Monday because of an electrical failure, aviation authorities said.
The aircraft, which had left Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was carrying the up and coming Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil for the first leg of a two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin.
“What was supposed to be a celebration has turned into a tragedy,” Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez said from the search and rescue command center.
In a statement on its Facebook page, the club said: “May God accompany our athletes, officials, journalists and other guests traveling with our delegation.”
Rescuers working through the night were initially heartened after pulling three passengers alive from the wreckage. But as the hours passed, heavy rainfall and low visibility grounded helicopters and slowed efforts to reach the crash site.
At daybreak, dozens of bodies were quickly collected into white bags while rescuers scavenged through pieces of the plane’s fuselage strewn across the muddy mountainside.
Images broadcast on local television showed three passengers arriving at a local hospital in ambulances on stretchers and covered in blankets connected to an IV. Among the survivors was Chapecoense defender Alan Ruschel, who doctors said suffered spinal injuries.
Two goalkeepers, Danilo and Jackson Follmann, as well as a journalist traveling with the team and a Bolivian flight attendant, were found alive in the wreckage. But Danilo was later reported as dead, and authorities said another defender, Helio Zampier, had survived amid a confusion of sometimes conflicting early reports.
Brazil’s President Michel Temer declared “three days of official mourning over the tragedy,” his office said.
On Twitter, Temer announced that Brazil’s air force would deploy to help relatives of the victims travel to Colombia.
The aircraft that crashed is owned by LaMia, a company with roots in Venezuela that has a close relationship with several premier South American squads.
Argentina’s state-run news agency said the plane involved in the crash had transported Barcelona striker Lionel Messi and the national team this month from Brazil to Colombia between World Cup qualifier matches. The airliner also reportedly transported Venezuela’s national squad and several top teams from Bolivia in the past.
Alfredo Bocanegra, head of Colombia’s aviation authority, said initial reports suggest the aircraft was suffering electrical problems although investigators were also looking into an account it had run out of fuel.
One of the survivors said the plane ran out of fuel about five minutes from its expected landing at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin.
Bolivia’s civil aviation agency said the aircraft had picked up the Brazilian team in Santa Cruz, where players arrived earlier in the day on a commercial flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Spokesman Cesar Torrico said the plane underwent an inspection before departing for Colombia and reported no problems.
British Aerospace, now known as BAE Systems, says the first 146-model plane took off in 1981 and that just under 400 were built in the UK to 2003. It says around 220 are still in service in a variety of roles, including aerial firefighting and overnight freight services.
A video published on the team’s Facebook page showed the team readying for a flight earlier on Monday in Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos international airport. Photos of team members in the cockpit and posing in front of the plane ahead of departure quickly spread across social media.
The team, from the small city of Chapeco, was in the middle of a fairy tale season. It joined Brazil’s first division in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s and made it last week to the Copa Sudamericana finals — the equivalent of the UEFA Europa League tournament — after defeating two of Argentina’s fiercest squads, San Lorenzo and Independiente, as well as Colombia’s Junior.
“This morning I said goodbye to them and they told me they were going after the dream, turning that dream into reality,” a Chapecoense board member told TV Globo. “The dream was over early this morning.”
Tournament organizers ruled the team’s 22,000-seat arena too small to host the final match, which was moved to a stadium 480 kilometers to the north in the city of Curitiba.
“This is unbelievable, I am walking on the grass of the stadium and I feel like I am floating,” team spokesman Andrei Copetti told reporters. “No one understands how a story that was so amazing could suffer such a devastating reversal. For many people here reality has still not struck.”
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
