CORRECTS TO DELETE THE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS - In this Wednesday, Nov.
23, 2016, file photo, players of Brazil's Chapecoense celebrate at the
end of a Copa Sudamericana semifinal soccer match against Argentina's
San Lorenzo in Chapeco, Brazil. A chartered aircraft with passengers
including players from Chapecoense, heading to Colombia for a regional
tournament final, has crashed on its way to Medellin's international
airport in Colombia, Medellin's Mayor Federico Gutierrez and Medellin's
airport said Tuesday, Nov. 29. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)
MEDELLIN,
Colombia (AP) — A chartered plane with a Brazilian first division
soccer team crashed near Medellin while on its way to the finals of a
regional tournament, killing 75 people, Colombian officials said. Six
people survived.
The
British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane, operated by a charter airline
named LaMia, declared an emergency and lost radar contact just before 10
p.m. Monday (0300 GMT) because of an electrical failure, aviation
authorities said.
The
aircraft, which had departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was transporting
the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil for the first leg
Wednesday 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.
The
club said in a brief statement on its Facebook page that "may God
accompany our athletes, officials, journalists and other guests
traveling with our delegation."
South
America's soccer federation extended its condolences to the entire
Chapecoense community and said its president, Alejandro Dominguez, was
on his way to Medellin. All soccer activities were suspended until
further notice, the organization said in a statement.
Dozens
of rescuers working through the night were initially heartened after
pulling three passengers alive from the wreckage. But as the hours
passed, and heavy rainfall and low visibility grounded helicopters and
complicated efforts to reach the mountainside crash site, the mood
soured to the point that authorities had to freeze until dusk what was
by then a body recovery operation.
Images
broadcast on local television showed three passengers arriving to a
local hospital in ambulances on stretchers and covered in blankets
connected to an IV. Among the survivors was a Chapecoense defender named
Alan Ruschel, who doctors said suffered spinal injuries. Two
goalkeepers, Danilo and Jackson Follmann, as well as a member of the
team's delegation and a Bolivian flight attendant, also survived.
The
plane was carrying 72 passengers and nine crew members, aviation
authorities said in a statement. Local radio said the same aircraft
transported Argentina's national squad for a match earlier this month in
Brazil, and previously had transported Venezuela's national team.
British
Aerospace, which is now known as BAE Systems, says that the first
146-model plane took off in 1981 and that just under 400 — including the
successor Avro RJ — were built in total in the U.K. through 2003. It
says around 220 of are still in service in a variety of roles, including
aerial firefighting and overnight freight services.
Alfredo
Bocanegra, the head of Colombia's aviation authority, said initial
reports suggest the aircraft was suffering electrical problems although
investigators were also looking into an account from one of the
survivors that the plane had run out of fuel about 5 minutes from its
expected landing at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin.
A
video published on the team's Facebook page showed the team readying
for the flight earlier Monday in Sao Paulo's Guarulhos international
airport. It wasn't immediately clear if the team switched planes in
Bolivia or just made a stopover with the same plane.
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," Chapecoense board member
told TV Globo. "The dream was over early this morning."
The
team is so modest that its 22,000-seat arena was ruled by tournament
organizers too small to host the final match, which was instead moved to
a stadium 300 miles (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," Andrei Copetti, a team spokesman, told The
Associated Press. "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."
___
Joshua
Goodman reported from Bogota. Associated Press writers Mauricio
Savarese, Renata Brito and Steve Wade contributed to this report from
Rio de Janeiro.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the name of the South American soccer federation president is Alejandro, not Luis.
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