Plane crash investigation begins amid mourning
LA UNION, Colombia/CHAPECO, Brazil: Doctors treated survivors of an air crash in Colombia that killed 71 people and wiped out Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team en route to a cup final in Colombia as an investigation got underway on Wednesday.
Only six people — three players, a journalist and two crew members — survived the crash on Monday night when Chapecoense’s charter plane, a BAe 146 made by BAE Systems Plc, hit a mountain en route to their Copa Sudamericana showdown in Medellin.
All were being treated at local hospitals.
Of the players, goalkeeper Jackson Follmann was recovering from the amputation of his right leg, doctors said. Another player, defender Helio Neto, remained in intensive care with severe trauma to his skull, thorax and lungs.
Fellow defender Alan Ruschel had spine surgery. Investigators from Brazil flew to join Colombian counterparts checking two black boxes from the crash site on a muddy hillside in wooded highlands near the town of La Union.
Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper cited crews from planes approaching Medellin Airport on Monday night as saying the pilot of Chapecoense’s flight shouted over the radio that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing.
Landing priority was given to a plane from airline VivaColombia, which had already reported instrument problems, the paper said.
Shortly afterward the Chapecoense plane told pilot of the the control tower he was experiencing electrical difficulties before the radio went silent, the paper quoted the sources as saying.
Another survivor, Bolivian flight technician Erwin Tumiri, said he survived because he strictly followed safety instructions.
“Many passengers got up from their seats and started yelling. I put the bag between my legs and went into the fetal position as recommended,” he told Colombia’s Radio Caracol.
Bolivian stewardess Ximena Suarez, another survivor, said the lights went out less than a minute before the plane slammed into the mountain, according to Colombian officials in Medellin.
Doctors said that Suarez and Tumiri were shaken and bruised but not in critical condition, while journalist Rafael Valmorbida was in intensive care for multiple rib fractures that partly collapsed a lung.