76 die in Colombia plane crash
Rescuers search for survivors from the wreckage of the LAMIA airlines charter plane carrying members of Brazilian Chapecoense Real football team that crashed in the mountains of Cerro Gordo, municipality of La Union yesterday killing 76 people. AFP Photo
A charter plane carrying a Brazilian football team crashed in the mountains in Colombia late Monday, killing 76 people, officials said. They said five survived the disaster, reports AFP.
The LAMIA airlines charter declared an emergency at around 10 pm local time” 0300 GMT Tuesday, reporting it had suffered “electrical failures,” and crashed a short time later near the city of Medellin, officials said.
The plane was carrying members of Chapecoense Real, a Brazilian football club which was to have played in the Copa Sudamericana finals on Wednesday against Atletico Nacional of Colombia.
In all, there were 72 passengers and nine crew on board.
“We were able to rescue six people alive but one of them died on the way to the hospital,” Jose Gerardo Acevedo, a police commander, told reporters.
One of the survivors was Alan Ruschel, a 27-year-old defender for the Brazilian team, the head of Colombia’s civil aeronautics agency, Alfredo Bocanegra, told reporters.
Radio Caracol said two other players—Marcos Danilo Padilla and Jackson Follmann—also survived and were taken to area hospitals, along with a flight attendant and a journalist.
‘Electrical failures’
The LAMIA airlines flight originated in Sao Paulo, Brazil and had made a stop in Santa Cruz, Bolivia before continuing on to Rionegro, a city near Medellin.
The airport statement said the plane reported an emergency at 10 pm local time (0300 GMT). “It declared it had electrical failures.”
It went down about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city, in an area called Cerro Gordo.
Elkin Ospina, the mayor of the town of La Ceja near the crash site, said the mountainous terrain was some 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) above sea level and very difficult to access.
Rescuers carrying stretchers had to hike for more than half and hour to reach the site.
On its Twitter account, the airport said a plan to fly in an air force helicopter had to be shelved because of bad weather in the area.
