Bodies of Chapecoense crash victims reach Brazil for memorial

Numerous 71 victims were players or supporters of the Chapecoense football team, which had chartered the plane after reaching the final of the Copa Sudamericana being held in Medellin, Colombia.

Cemetery workers prepare burial sites in Chapeco, Brazil, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016, as Colombia begins repatriating the dead from a chartered plane crash.

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.

The memorial comes after a heart-wrenching week for residents and family members stunned by the crash.

Only six of those on board survived, including three members of the football team.

More than 100,000 people are expected to turn out for a ceremony at the team’s stadium in Chapeco later.

The incident Shocked soccer fans the world over and plunged Brazil into mourning.

Among those killed were 19 first-team players.

Bolivian aviation officials announced they were indefinitely suspending the charter company that operated the flight after a recording of conversations between a pilot of the doomed flight and air traffic controllers, as well as the account of a surviving flight attendant, indicated the plane ran out of fuel.

The Bolivian President, Evo Morales, pledged to take “drastic measures” to determine what caused the crash.

On Saturday, people were gathering again around an impromptu shrine with fresh flowers and handmade posters as the bodies were due to return on a Colombian air force transport plane.

The winger did not play in that game, and has since been eased back into action by Conte as a substitute – which, on Saturday, resulted in Willian scoring a crucial goal as Chelsea came from behind to defeat Premier League rivals Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.

“This unthinkable tragedy is strikingly similar to when we lost 75 sons and daughters in the 1970 Marshall plane crash”, Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said in a release. LaMia’s charter license has now been suspended pending investigations into the crash, while Cecilia Castedo Monasterio, a Bolivian official with over 30 years of aviation experience, is also being investigated for signing off on the flight plan in Santa Cruz.

“It felt like every day you would bump into them and their families”.

“This really was a tragedy, a tragedy that this happened because of pure irresponsibility”, said one pilot, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to give interviews.

CONMEBOL chief Alejandro Dominguez, Brazil coach Tite, the country’s president Michel Temer and Gianni Infantino, the head of Federation Internationale de Football Association, were all in attendance, while large screens broadcast the speeches of the delegates to those fans who congregated outside the ground.

The plane’s flight recorders are due to be examined in the United Kingdom and a full investigation into the crash is expected to take months.