At Least 70 Killed in Plane Crash in Colombia
The plane carried a Brazilian soccer team.
An airplane carrying a Brazilian soccer team crashed in Colombia on Tuesday, killing at least 70 people. The Wall Street Journal reported:
The plane was carrying 81 people when it came down in the mountainous region near the international airport, according to Police Commander José Gerardo Acevedo. The flight included crew, a number of journalists, and the Associação Chapecoense de Futebol team, a Cinderella squad enjoying its best season.
Colombian aviation authorities said at least six people had survived the crash, including two Chapecoense players, Alan Ruschel and Jackson Follmann.
Bad weather hampered rescue efforts during the night.
Electrical failure is the leading hypothesis for what caused the disaster, Col. Edgar Sánchez, director of air navigation services for Colombia’s civil aviation authority, told Radio Blu of Bogotá on Tuesday.
“The information indicates that at the time [of the accident], the airport was operating in a normal way, there was surveillance and positive control on this flight,” Col. Sánchez told the radio station. But at 21:54 p.m. local time, radar tracking and communication with the aircraft were lost, he said, according to the radio report.
The Bolivian LaMia airline aircraft was carrying 72 passengers and nine crew, Colombia’s civil aviation authority said in a post on its official Twitter account. The aircraft was identified by authorities as an Avro 146 jetliner, built by a predecessor to Britain’s BAE Systems PLC.
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