Colombia Plane Crash: 76 Confirmed Dead, Including Footballers From Brazil's Chapecoense

A plane carrying players from a Brazilian football team headed to Colombia for a regional tournament final, has crashed on its way to Medellin's airport, killing at least 76 people.

Police officials said that five passengers had survived, one died in hospital and that the rest of the passengers were killed in the crash.

The entire Chapocoense football team - and an accompanying entourage of staff and journalists - were among 72 passengers and nine crew on board the aircraft.

• Al Jazeera's Alessandro Rampietti, reporting from Bogota, said the flight crashed in a mountainous region.
• "There have been heavy rains day in and day out in the last week or so," he said. "That could have played a big role in the crash, but that is still unconfirmed."
• Medillin's Mayor  Federico Gutierrez said he was on his way to the region where the chartered aircraft was believed to have crashed shortly before midnight local time.
• "It's a tragedy of huge proportions," he told Blu Radio.

It was not clear what caused the British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane to crash, but, as reported by Rampietti, Colombia had been hit by heavy rains and thunderstorms in recent hours.

Data from the FlightRadar24.com website showed the plane circling before eventually disappearing south of Rio Negro. Medellin's airport confirmed that the aircraft, which made a stop in Bolivia, was transporting the first division Chapecoense team from southern Brazil.

The team was scheduled to play on Wednesday in the first of a two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin.

Source: Al Jazeera...More...