Colombia repatriates dead as airline’s licensing questioned

Bolivian president rips aviation officials who OK’d flight plan.

RIO NEGRO, COLOMBIA — Victims of this week’s tragic air crash in the Andes were flown home Friday as Bolivia’s president called for “drastic measures” against aviation officials who signed off on a flight plan that experts and even one of the charter airline’s executives said should never have been attempted.

The move by President Evo Morales came after evidence emerged that the pilot reported the plane was out of fuel minutes before it slammed into a muddy mountainside, killing all but six of the 77 people on board. Among the dead were players and coaches from a small-town Brazilian soccer team that was headed to the finals of one of South America’s most prestigious tournaments after a fairy-tale season that had captivated their soccer-crazed nation.

As an honor guard sounded taps early Friday, members of Colombia’s military loaded five Bolivian crew members who died in the crash onto a cargo plane for the trip back home.

Later in the day, caskets containing the remains of 50 Brazilian victims, many draped with sheets printed with their team’s green and white logo, began the journey to the Chapecoense club’s hometown in southern Brazil. The bodies of 14 Brazilian journalists traveling with the team and two passengers from other South American nations were being sent home on separate flights.

Bolivian flight crew member Erwin Tumiri became the first of the survivors to be released from the hospital. Before leaving, he recorded a cellphone message thanking his rescuers and the medical staff who treated him.

The farewells came as details surfaced of possible negligence and unsettling family ties between the Bolivian-based charter company LaMia and the country’s aviation agency, which approved the ill-fated flight Monday between Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and Medellin, Colombia, even though it exceeded the short-haul jet’s maximum flying range.

Attention was focused on a former Bolivian air force general, Gustavo Vargas, who is one of LaMia’s owners and whose son headed the office responsible for licensing aircraft in Bolivia’s civil aviation agency. As part of the investigation, the younger Vargas was suspended Thursday along with several other high-ranking aviation officials. The airline, whose only operable aircraft was the British Aerospace 146 Avro RJ85 that crashed, was also grounded.

Morales said Friday that the elder Vargas served as his pilot in 2006. But he said that he had no knowledge of the airline’s existence and called for a “profound investigation” to explain whether Vargas’ son, also named Gustavo Vargas, favored the airline.