Brazilian soccer team’s plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

[spaminator]

Brazilian soccer team’s plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead
Luis Benavides and Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press
First posted: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 12:52 AM EST | Updated: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 09:35 AM EST
MEDELLIN, Colombia — A chartered plane carrying a Brazilian first division soccer team crashed outside Medellin while on its way to the finals of a regional tournament, killing 76 people, Colombian officials said Tuesday. Six people initially survived, but one of them later died in a hospital.
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 centre.
The club said in a brief statement on its Facebook page that “may God accompany our athletes, officials, journalists and other guests travelling 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, were found alive in the wreckage.
But Danilo later died while receiving hospital treatment, team spokesman Andrei Copetti told The Associated Press.
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 kilometres) 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,” Copetti told the AP. “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.”
A list of sports teams involved in fatal plane crashes:
Nov. 8, 1948 — Czechoslovak national team, five members including IIHF Hall of Famer, Ladislav Trojak, in the English Channel.
May 4, 1949 — Italian soccer club Turin. The four-time league champions lost 22 members, including 18 players, in Turin, Italy.
Jan. 7, 1950 — Moscow VVS ice hockey team, 11 players, near Sverdlovsk.
Feb. 6, 1958 — English soccer champion Manchester United, eight members, in Munich.
Aug. 14, 1958 — Egyptian fencing team, six members, in the Atlantic Ocean.
Oct. 10, 1960 — Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo football team, 16 members, in Toledo, Ohio.
Feb. 16, 1961 — U.S. figure skating team, 18 members and 10 coaches and officials, in Belgium.
April 3, 1961 — Green Cross, eight members of the first-division Chilean soccer team plus two members of the coaching staff, in the Las Lastimas Mountains.
April 28, 1968 — Lamar Tech track team, five members and the coach, in Beaumont, Texas.
Sept. 26, 1969 — Bolivian soccer team “The Strongest,” coach Eustaquio Ortuno, 16 players and two staff members, near Viloco, Bolivia.
Oct. 2, 1970 — Wichita State football team, 14 players, in Colorado.
Nov. 14, 1970 — Marshall University football team, 36 players, in Huntington, West Virginia
Oct. 13, 1972 — Uruguayan rugby club, among the 29 casualties, in the Andes, Chile.
Dec. 13, 1977 — University of Evansville men’s basketball coach Bobby Watson and 14 players, in Evansville, Indiana
March 14, 1980 — U.S. amateur boxing team, 14 members, in Warsaw, Poland.
Nov. 25, 1985 — Iowa State women’s cross country team, coach Ron Renko, assistant coach Pat Moynihan, and team members Julie Rose, Susan Baxter and Sheryl Maahs, in Des Moines, Iowa.
Dec. 8, 1987 — Peruvian first-division soccer team Alianza Lima, coach Marcos Calderon and 16 players, in Lima, Peru.
April 28, 1993 — Zambia’s national soccer team, 18 players and five team officials, in Libreville, Gabon.
Jan. 27, 2001 — Oklahoma State basketball players Dan Lawson and Nate Fleming, and six team staffers and broadcasters, in Byers, Colorado.
Sept. 7, 2011 — Russian hockey team Lokomotiv, 27 players, two coaches and seven club officials, in Tunoshna, Russia.
Brazilian soccer team’s plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead | World | News | Toro

 

[spaminator]

Chilling video shows Brazilian soccer players on doomed flight
Postmedia Network
First posted: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 02:31 PM EST | Updated: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 05:54 PM EST
Moments before the plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team crashed in Colombia, one of the players posted a short clip to Instagram from inside the doomed flight.
The chilling video, shot by Chapecoense defender Alan Ruschel moments before the plane went down, shows passengers on Flight AMI2993 sleeping and relaxing. Ruschel, with smiling goalkeeper Marcos Danilo Padilha by his side, says “In not long, we’ll be arriving in Colombia. We’re coming Colombia.”
But the plane never made it to Medellin, crashing into a mountainside after reporting an electrical failure. Authorities believe at least 71 people, including most of the team and several members of the media, died in the crash.
Another survivor, reserve goalie Jackson Follmann, had one of his legs amputated and is in critical condition, according to Brazil’s Globo. His family said it was a miracle the 24-year-old was alive.
Padilha, found seriously injured in the wreckage of the doomed flight, apparently managed to talk to his wife before dying in a Colombian hospital. Ruschel, 27, was also found alive but suffered spinal injuries, according to the Telegraph.
Padilha, 31, spoke to his wife by phone from his hospital bed, only to die from his injuries a short time later. Just weeks before the crash, he called his wife “my love” in a social media post.
The Chapecoense soccer team was travelling to Medellin to play Atletico Nacional in the final of the Copa Sudamericana, South America’s second biggest cup competition.
All soccer on the continent has been suspended until further notice.
Chilling video shows Brazilian soccer players on doomed flight | World | News |

 

[Blackleaf]

It's Chapecoense's equivalent of the Munich Disaster.

 

[spaminator]

Hunt begins for cause of crash that wipes out Brazilian team
Fernando Vergara And Joshua Goodman, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 12:51 AM EST | Updated: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 12:59 AM EST
LA UNION, Colombia — Colombia’s worst air crash in two decades snuffed out a storybook run by a Brazilian soccer team, and authorities are digging in trying to figure out why a chartered jetliner crashed in the Andes, killing all but six of the 77 people aboard.
The country’s aviation agency said Tuesday that the British Aerospace 146’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder had been found among the wreckage strewn over a mountainside and were already being studied by experts.
Initially, Colombian officials said the short-haul jet suffered an electrical failure, but there was also heavy rain when the crew declared an emergency and the plane disappeared from radar just before 10 p.m. Monday.
Authorities also said they were not ruling out the possibility the aircraft ran out of fuel minutes before it was to land at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin, a report given to rescuers by a surviving flight attendant. Officials said they hoped to interview her Wednesday.
Emotional pain resonated across the region over the loss of much of the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil, which just two years after working its way into Brazil’s top league for the first time in decades had fought its way into the championship of one of South America’s most prestigious tournaments.
The aircraft, which departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was carrying the team to Wednesday’s first game in the two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin. Twenty-one Brazilian journalists were travelling with the team.
South America’s soccer federation cancelled all scheduled matches in a show of solidarity, while the Real Madrid and Barcelona clubs interrupted their training sessions for a minute of silence. Brazil’s top teams offered to lend players to the small club for next season as it rebuilds, saying: “It is the minimum gesture of solidarity that is within our reach.”
In a moving gesture, Atletico Nacional asked that the championship title be given to Chapecoense, whose upstart run in the tournament electrified soccer-crazed Brazil.
Three players were among the survivors. Alan Ruschel was reported in the most serious condition, facing surgery for a spinal fracture. Teammates Helio Zampier and Jakson Follmann also suffered multiple trauma injuries, and doctors had to amputate Follmann’s right leg.
A journalist also underwent surgery and two Bolivian crew members were in stable condition, hospital officials said.
The aircraft is owned by LaMia, a charter company that started in Venezuela but later relocated to Bolivia, where it was certified to operate last January. Despite apparently limited experience, the airline has a close relationship with several premier South American soccer squads.
Earlier this month, the plane involved in the crash transported Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and Argentina’s national team from Brazil following a World Cup qualifying match. The airliner also appeared to have transported the national squads of Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela in the last three months, according to a log of recent activity provided by Flightradar24.com.
Before being taken offline, LaMia’s website said it operated three 146 Avro short-haul jets made by British Aerospace, with a maximum range of around 2,965 kilometres (1,600 nautical miles) — about the distance between Santa Cruz and Medellin.
Hans Weber, a longtime adviser to U.S. aviation authorities, said the aircraft’s range deserves careful investigation. He noted that air distance between cities is usually measured by the shortest route but planes rarely fly in a straight line, with pilots steering around turbulence or changing course for other reasons.
Given the model of the plane and the fact that it was flying close to capacity, “I would be concerned that the pilots may have been cutting it too close,” Weber said.
A spokesman for Bolivia’s civil aviation agency, Cesar Torrico, said the plane was inspected before departing for Colombia and no problems were reported.
Gustavo Vargas, a retired Bolivian air force general who is president of the airline, said: “We can’t rule out anything. The investigation is ongoing and we’re going to await the results.”
Moments before the plane took off, the team’s coaching staff gave an interview to a Bolivian television station in which they praised the airline, saying it brought them good fortune when it flew them to Colombia last month for the championship’s quarterfinals, which they won.
“Now we’re going to do this new trip and we hope they bring us good luck like they did the first time,” athletic director Mauro Stumpf told Gigavision TV.
The team, from the small Brazilian city of Chapeco, was having a breakout season. It advanced to the Copa Sudamericana finals after defeating some of the region’s top teams, including Argentina’s San Lorenzo and Independiente.
The Chapecoense club is so modest that tournament organizers ruled its 22,000-seat stadium was too small to host the concluding match of the two-game final and moved it to a stadium 300 miles (480 kilometres) to the city of Curitiba. Some fans in soccer-mad Brazil were so enchanted with its magical run that they started a campaign online to move the final match to Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Maracana stadium, where the 2014 World Cup final was played.
“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 Plinio De Nes told Brazil’s TV Globo. “The dream was over early this morning.”
Hunt begins for cause of crash that wipes out Brazilian team | World | News | To

 

[spaminator]

Doomed plane carrying Brazilian team may have run out of fuel
Fernando Vergara And Joshua Goodman, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 12:51 AM EST | Updated: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 09:19 PM EST
MEDELLIN, Colombia — The pilot of the chartered plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team told air traffic controllers he had run out of fuel and desperately pleaded for permission to land before crashing into the Andes, according to a leaked recording of the final minutes of the doomed flight.
In the sometimes chaotic exchange with the air traffic tower, the pilot of the British-built jet could be heard repeatedly requesting authorization to land because of “fuel problems.” A female controller explained another plane had been diverted with mechanical problems and had priority, instructing the pilot to wait seven minutes.
As the plane circled in a holding pattern, the pilot grew more desperate. “Complete electrical failure, without fuel,” he said in the tense final moments before the plane set off on a four-minute death spiral that ended with it slamming into a mountainside Monday night.
Just before going silent the pilot said he was flying at an altitude of 9,000 feet and made a final plea to land: “Vectors, senorita. Landing vectors.”
The recording, obtained Wednesday by Colombian media, appeared to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic exchange. These, along with the lack of an explosion upon impact, point to a rare case of fuel running out as a cause of the crash of the jetliner, which experts said was flying at its maximum range.
For now, authorities are avoiding singling out any one cause of the crash, which killed all but six of the 77 people on board, including members of Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team travelling to Medellin for the Copa Sudamericana finals — the culmination of a fairy tale season that had electrified soccer-crazed Brazil.
A full investigation is expected to take months and will review everything from the 17-year-old aircraft’s flight and maintenance history to the voice and instruments data in the black boxes recovered Tuesday at the crash site on a muddy hillside. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was taking part in the investigation because the plane’s engines were made by an American manufacturer.
As the probe continued, mourning soccer fans in Medellin and the southern Brazilian town of Chapeco, where the team is from, were converging on the two cities’ soccer stadiums for simultaneous candlelight vigils. The six survivors were recovering in hospitals, with three in critical but stable condition, while forensic specialists worked to identify the victims so they could be transferred to a waiting cargo plane sent by the Brazilian air force to repatriate the bodies.
Alfredo Bocanegra, head of Colombia’s aviation agency, said that while evidence initially pointed to an electrical problem, the possibility the crash was caused by lack of fuel has not been ruled out. Planes need to have enough extra fuel on board to fly at least 30 to 45 minutes to another airport in the case of an emergency, and rarely fly in a straight line because of turbulence or other reasons.
Before being taken offline, the website of LaMia, the Bolivian-based charter company, said the British Aerospace 146 Avro RJ85 jetliner’s maximum range was 2,965 kilometres (1,600 nautical miles) — just under the distance between Medellin and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the flight originated carrying close to its full passenger capacity.
“If this is confirmed by the investigators it would be very painful because it stems from negligence,” Bocanegra told Caracol Radio on Wednesday when asked whether the plane should not have attempted such a long haul.
One key piece to unlocking the mystery could come from Ximena Sanchez, a Bolivian flight attendant who survived the crash and told rescuers the plane had run out of fuel moments before the crash. Investigators were expected to interview her Wednesday at the clinic near Medellin where she is recovering.
“’We ran out of fuel. The airplane turned off,”’ rescuer Arquimedes Mejia quoted Sanchez as saying as he pulled her from the wreckage. “That was the only thing she told me,” he told The Associated Press.
Investigators also want to speak to Juan Sebastian Upegui, the co-pilot of an Avianca commercial flight who was in contact with air traffic controllers near Medellin’s Jose Maria Cordova airport at the time the chartered plane went down.
In a four-minute recording circulated on social media, Upegui described how he heard the flight’s pilot request priority to land because he was out of fuel. Growing ever more desperate, the pilot eventually declared a “total electrical failure,” Upegui said, before the plane quickly began to lose speed and altitude.
“I remember I was pulling really hard for them, saying ’Make it, make it, make it, make it,”’ Upeqgui says in the recording. “Then it stopped. ... The controller’s voice starts to break up and she sounds really sad. We’re in the plane and start to cry.”
No traces of fuel have been found at the crash site and the plane did not explode on impact, one of the reasons there were six survivors.
However, there could be other explanations for that: The pilot may have intentionally dumped fuel in the hopes of reducing the risk of a fireball in a crash, or the aircraft could have suffered a fuel leak or other unexplained reason for losing fuel.
John Cox, a retired airline pilot and CEO of Florida-based Safety Operating Systems, said the aircraft’s amount of fuel deserves a careful look.
“The airplane was being flight-planned right to its maximum. Right there it says that even if everything goes well they are not going to have a large amount of fuel when they arrive,” said Cox. “I don’t understand how they could do the flight nonstop with the fuel requirements that the regulations stipulate.”
Doomed plane carrying Brazilian team may have run out of fuel | World | News | T

 

[bobnoorduyn]

I won't speculate on any cause of this accident, but will say that every airline in the world does try to exact the maximum use out of their aircraft, beyond what they were originally designed for. Anyone who has had to suffer the indignity of having to endure a Q400 flight from Winnipeg to Edmonton will tell you, (though a Dash-8 can fly nearly 4 hours), it is not meant to fly passengers for more than 1 1/2hrs, it is frigging painful. I have seen the range stretched to the limits as well. The 146 is a short haul aircraft, but they give all the units in kilometres, which is foreign to me, and I am too tired to do the math. It is also a poor performer as jets go, the old joke is. Q "why are there four engines", A "Cuz they couldn't fit six". I was quite underwhelmed when I first flew the thing. But we'll see how the investigation proceeds. (We're still waiting to see the results of the AC624 mishap in Halifax a year and a half ago, this is how long it can take to get any answers, painful).

 

[Blackleaf]

The pilot reported that they'd run out of fuel.

This incident will bring back bad memories for Manchester United fans above a certain age, who will remember when much of the Manchester United team (the "Busby Babes") was wiped out in a plane crash at Munich Airport in 1958. One of the survivors was Bobby Charlton, who went on to win the World Cup with England in 1966.

 

[Mowich]

They had to have known they were going down and that is one of the most horrifying aspects of this story.

 

[gopher]

Terrible tragedy. Like the others listed above, an irreplaceable loss to the sports world.

 

[spaminator]

Grief turns to anger amid reports of lack of fuel in crash
Fernando Vergara And Joshua Goodman, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Thursday, December 01, 2016 10:22 AM EST | Updated: Thursday, December 01, 2016 06:28 PM EST
MEDELLIN, Colombia — Simultaneous tear-filled tributes were held at packed stadiums in Colombia and Brazil for the victims of this week’s air tragedy that claimed 71 lives when a chartered plane crashed while ferrying a scrappy, small-town soccer team to the finals of a prestigious South American tournament.

The tributes took place Wednesday night as crash investigators aided by dramatic cockpit recordings were studying why the British-built jet apparently ran out of fuel before slamming into a muddy mountainside just a few miles from Medellin’s international airport.

In the sometimes chaotic exchange with the air traffic tower, the pilot jet requested permission to land because of “fuel problems” without making a formal distress call. A female controller explained another plane that had been diverted with mechanical problems of its own was already approaching the runway and had priority, instructing the pilot to wait seven minutes.

As the jetliner circled in a holding pattern, the pilot grew more desperate. “Complete electrical failure, without fuel,” he said in the tense final moments before the plane set off on a four-minute death spiral.

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. Just before going silent, the pilot said he was flying at an altitude of 9,000 feet and made a final plea to land: “Vectors, senorita. Landing vectors.”

The recording appeared to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic exchange. These, along with the lack of an explosion upon impact, pointed to a rare case of fuel burnout as a cause of the crash of the jetliner, a BAE 146 Avro RJ85 that experts said was at its maximum range on the flight from Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

“The airplane was being flight-planned right to its maximum. Right there it says that even if everything goes well they are not going to have a large amount of fuel when they arrive,” said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and CEO of Florida-based Safety Operating Systems. “I don’t understand how they could do the flight nonstop with the fuel requirements that the regulations stipulate.”

British aviation experts will investigate the black box and flight data recorder. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch said Thursday that the key instruments offering clues to what happened to the plane will be brought to Britain in the coming days for study.

While the experts worked, thousands of white-clad supporters of Medellin’s Atletico Nacional club jammed the stands of the 40,000-seat stadium where the team had been scheduled to play a Copa Sudamericana finals match against Brazil’s ill-fated Chapecoense. With the words “Eternal Champions” blazing on a big screen, the normally combative Atletico fans put sportsmanship first and paid tribute to the rival team, which they’ve urged be named the champion.

The names of each of the 71 victims of Monday night’s crash was read aloud while a military band played taps and Black Hawk helicopters that helped in the rescue operations that pulled six people alive from the wreckage flew overhead. In the stands, mourners stood for a minute of silence holding candles and signs reading “We’re all Chapeconese” and “Soccer has no borders.”

The emotional high point of the tribute in Medellin was an address by Brazilian Foreign Minister Jose Serra, who travelled to the city along with a military cargo plane to help repatriate the bodies of the mostly Brazilian victims. He highlighted the fact that both teams shared the same green and white jersey colours, a sign to him of unity amid tragedy.

“We Brazilians will never forget the way Colombians lived as their own this terrible, terrible disaster that disrupted Chapecoense’s dream,” the normally stone-faced political veteran said while wiping away tears. “You offer us enormous comfort — a light in the darkness when all of us are trying to understand the unexplainable.”

Across the continent, in Brazil, the mood was even more sombre as residents of the small agricultural city of Chapeco gathered in the team’s stadium for a Roman Catholic Mass with relatives of the victims and the players who didn’t travel with the team to Medellin.

At the same time they had expected to be home watching their team on TV, more than 22,000 Chapecoense fans cried as they watched videos of tributes that poured in from all over the world. They then cheered the names of each of the dead players as well as the appearance of 5-year-old mascot Carlos Miguel, who usually appears on the sidelines of games in a Chapeco Indian headdress and who many had feared was on the doomed plane.

Chape, as the team is called locally, reached the top of South American soccer without any superstars or any players from Brazil’s celebrated national team. It was in the fourth division just seven years ago and only reached the first division in 2014. Its run to the finals of the Copa Sudamericana impressed fans across the continent as it knocked out some of South America’s legendary teams.

“We are the champions because we deserved this title,” said goalkeeper Nivaldo, who was held back so he could prepare for his 300th game with the club Sunday in the last game of the Brazilian league season. “And we needed to be here with this crowd as much as they needed us here.”

Three of the team’s players are among the crash’s survivors. Doctors said Wednesday that they remained in critical but stable condition. One player, Jakson Follmann, had his right leg amputated, while defender Alan Ruschel was recovering from surgery for a spinal fracture.
Grief turns to anger amid reports of lack of fuel in crash | World | News | Toro

 

[bobnoorduyn]

The pilot reported that they'd run out of fuel.

This incident will bring back bad memories for Manchester United fans above a certain age, who will remember when much of the Manchester United team (the "Busby Babes") was wiped out in a plane crash at Munich Airport in 1958. One of the survivors was Bobby Charlton, who went on to win the World Cup with England in 1966.

Among other things it appears the main cause of that one was slush on the runway, the only similarity otherwise was that there was a popular team on board, making it a national tragedy. Like I said before, it will probably take a while before an official report comes out, but there are really only two things that really terrify me, and should be treated as priority emergencies above any other, those being a cabin fire and fuel shortage, (engine fires are usually fairly well contained but can be scary too).


It is reported that another aircraft was experiencing difficulties at the same time, but three words will give you priority over all else, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday". I've only ever personally heard that radio call once, I was the one who made it, but the world does stop and you get the attention of everyone and all the help you need.


How they let themselves get so low on fuel, if that is determined to be the cause, I guess we'll have to wait and see what the investigators determine. Believe me, that is a really $h!tty situation to find yourself in, been there.

 

[spaminator]

Memorial for Brazil soccer players who died in plane crash
Mauricio Savarese and Stephen Wade, THE ASSIOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Saturday, December 03, 2016 04:27 PM EST | Updated: Saturday, December 03, 2016 05:11 PM EST
CHAPECO, Brazil — On a rainy Saturday that only accentuated the grief, 20,000 people filled a tiny stadium under umbrellas and plastic ponchos to say goodbye to members of the Chapecoense soccer club who died in a plane crash.
The accident Monday in the Colombian Andes claimed most of the team’s players and staff as it headed to the finals of one of Latin America’s most important club tournaments. Seventy-one of the 77 people on board died, including 19 players on the team.
Rain-soaked mourners jammed the modest stadium with four or five times that many outside to pay homage to a modest club that nearly reached the pinnacle of Latin American soccer. In total, about half the population of the southern Brazilian city of 210,000 gathered.
Thousands also lined the roads as the coffins were driven in a procession from the airport to the stadium memorial.
“I’ve been here since early morning,” said 19-year-old Chaiane Lorenzetti, who said she worked at a local supermarket frequented by club players and officials. “I’ll never see some of my clients again. It’s a devastating day that will last forever.”
Soldiers wearing berets carried the coffins into the stadium on their shoulders, sloshing through standing water and mud on a field filled with funeral wreaths, club and national flags, and other tributes.
A tent, with the coffins placed underneath, stretched across the width of the soccer field. On top of the white tent, a sentence from the club’s anthem was written for all to read.
“In happiness and in the most difficult hours,” it said. “You are always a winner.”
Family members and friends wept under the tents. Many hunched over the coffins with photos of the deceased placed on top or alongside as almost everything got splattered by the non-stop rain.
Brazilian President Michel Temer, who had not planned to visit the stadium for fear of being jeered, showed up after greeting the arrival of the bodies at the airport. He was treated respectfully and was joined by Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA — the world governing body of soccer.
“This is a time for pain and suffering, not for talking,” Infantino said. “No words can diminish the suffering.”
Marco Polo Del Nero, the head of the Brazilian Football Confederation, was mildly applauded but also had insults shouted his way.
Del Nero has been indicted by U.S. officials on corruption charges, although he has not been extradited.
“You only came here because it’s inside Brazil,” one fan shouted, referring to the fact that Del Nero is likely to be arrested on a warrant if he leaves Brazil.
Del Nero’s predecessor, Jose Maria Marin, is under house arrest in the United States awaiting a trial.
He was among top soccer officials arrested 18 months in raids in Switzerland.
The loudest applause was probably for Brazil’s new national team coach Adenor Leonardo Bacchi — known universally as Tite (pronounced Chi-Chi). He has led Brazil to six straight victories since taking over, quickly becoming a national hero.
Ivan Tozzo, the acting president of the club, told fans the club would continue on, and reminded them that “it was here on this field where this club fought the good fight.”
“This team taught us that everything is possible,” he added, recalling the team rose in less than a decade from the depths of Brazilian club soccer to the final of the No. 2 tournament on the soccer-crazed continent.
In closing he added, “We are all Chapecoense.”
Chapeco Mayor Luciano Buligon, like several speakers, praised the aid Colombia provided — along with the club Atletico Nactional, the team Chapecoense was to play in the two-game final.
“Atletico Nacional summed it all up on its website,” the mayor said. “Atletico said Chapecoense came to Medellin with a dream, and it leaves a legend. Legends don’t die.”
The stadium memorial came after a heart-wrenching week for residents and family members stunned by the crash.
Hundreds of banners, flags and handwritten messages hung around the stadium — in Portuguese, Spanish and English.
One sign in Spanish was aimed at Colombian officials who helped with the rescue. Six people survived, including three players.
“Colombia, Thanks For Everything” it read.
“They deserve a farewell of champions,” said Tatiana Bruno, who stood inside the stadium in the rain, wearing a plastic poncho to stay dry.
It wasn’t clear exactly how many coffins were brought into the stadium, though television reports put a rough count at 50. Most of the people who died, including the 19 players, were not from Chapeco and were to be buried elsewhere.
The rain let up at the end of the two-hour memorial, lifting some of the gloom. It also allowed family members and friends to circle the field, many with photos raised high of the deceased.
Ahead of the memorial, the bodies arrived in Chapeco on overnight flights from Colombia.
The caskets were received by soldiers waiting in formation on the tarmac. Under heavy rain, they removed one at a time, wheeling them through standing puddles to vehicles to transport them to the stadium.
Staff at the Jardim do Eden cemetery, where some victims will be buried, said on Friday they were used to the business of death, but not a tragedy of this size.
“We bury two people every day. I’ve done this job for a long time, but this is different,” said Dirceu Correa, caretaker of the cemetery. “It is a tragedy for the families, for the club, and also for us because we are a part of the city.”
Savarese reported from Chapeco, and Wade from Rio de Janeiro.
Trucks carrying the coffins with the remains of Chapecoense soccer team members, victims of an air crash in Colombia, drive through the streets of Chapeco, Brazil, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Memorial for Brazil soccer players who died in plane crash | World | News | Toro

 

[spaminator]

Colombia plane crash survivor says there was no time to react
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Monday, December 05, 2016 11:13 AM EST | Updated: Monday, December 05, 2016 11:35 AM EST
BOGOTA — One of the survivors of last week’s plane crash in the Andes said the passengers of the chartered flight had no idea their aircraft was running out of gas before it slammed into a mountainside.
Erwin Tumiri, a technician on the flight, described the final moments of the doomed flight in an interview Monday with Colombia’s Blu radio.
He said most passengers including members of a Brazilian soccer team were preparing for a normal landing when the cabin lights went out and the British-built jet began to shake. He said there was no time to react and nobody from the cockpit had alerted him that they were running low on fuel and had requested an emergency landing.
Tumiri spoke from Cocahabamba, Bolivia where he’s recovering in a hospital.
Erwin Tumiri lies in bed at a clinic in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, after surviving the plane crash that killed the majority of the Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense. (AP Photo/Diego Cartagena)

Colombia plane crash survivor says there was no time to react | World | News | T

 

[spaminator]

Official accuses bosses of cover up in crash that wiped out soccer team
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Thursday, December 08, 2016 10:20 PM EST | Updated: Thursday, December 08, 2016 10:28 PM EST
LA PAZ, Bolivia — A Bolivian official who signed off on the flight plan for a chartered aircraft that crashed in the Andes is breaking her silence and accusing her bosses of trying to stage a coverup.
In a public letter, Celia Castedo says she didn’t have the authority to stop the doomed flight to Medellin, Colombia, that killed 71 people, including members of a Brazilian soccer team heading to the finals of the Copa Sudamericana tournament.
Castedo says that a day after the crash her superiors pressured her to modify an internal report that she claims details how she warned the airline the plane didn’t have enough fuel to safely make the flight.
Bolivian officials say Castedo is under investigation for her responsibility in the crash. She has sought asylum in Brazil.
Funeral employees cover a casket, decorated with a Chapecoense soccer team logo, containing the remains of a team member at San Vicente funeral home in Medellin, Colombia, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Official accuses bosses of cover up in crash that wiped out soccer team | World

 

[spaminator]

Bolivia detains airline’s president as crash probe advances | NEWS | World | New

 

[spaminator]

Soccer player awakes from coma with no memory of deadly Colombia plane crash | W

 

[spaminator]

Probe finds human error, lack of fuel in air crash that killed Brazilian soccer