A plane carrying a Brazilian football team crashed in the mountains in Colombia, killing an estimated 75 people while six survived, including several players, officials said.
The LAMIA airlines charter declared an emergency at around 10 p.m., reporting it had suffered "electrical failures," and crashed a short time later near the city of Medellin.The plane was carrying members of Chapecoense Real, a Brazilian football club that had risen from obscurity to reach the Copa Sudamericana finals, which were set for Wednesday against Atletico Nacional of Colombia.
"The pain is terrible; just as we had made it, I will not say to the top, but to have national prominence, a tragedy like this happens. It is very difficult, a very great tragedy," the club vice president, Ivan Tozzo, told Globo SportTV.
In all, there were 72 passengers and nine crew on board the British Aerospace 146. (Avro RJ85)
Brazil's President Michel Temer declared three days of mourning for the victims.
Football stars including Argentina's Lionel Messi and retired legend Diego Maradona led tributes to the players and messages of mourning.
"Sadly those lads, who were on the way to becoming a force in football, took the wrong plane," Maradona said.
The civil aviation authority said six of the 81 people on board were known to have survived the crash, which left the plane's wrecked white shell plastered over a hillside.
Brazil's National Civil Aviation Authority said the team flew on a commercial flight to Santa Cruz in Bolivia, where they switched to a Lamia charter flight bound for Colombia.
The airport statement said the plane's crew "declared it had electrical failures."
The mountainous terrain was some 10,800 feet above sea level and very difficult to access; rescuers carrying stretchers had to hike for more than half an hour to reach the site.
The flight was operating from Santa Cruz (VVI) to Medellín (MDE), a distance of 2,975 kilometers. LMI2933 departed Santa Cruz at 22:18 UTC. The last message received was at 02:55 UTC passing 15,500 feet AMSL, approximately 33 kilometers south of Medellín Airport. The location of the crash is approximately 17km from the airport.
The aircraft was a British Aerospace Avro RJ85, registered CP-2933 (CN E 2348). It first flew in 1999 for Mesaba Airlines in the United States before flying for CityJet in Europe until 2010. It began operating in South America in 2013 after storage.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the immediate family and friends and of course everyone at Pakistan International Airlines.
GOD BLESS
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