Plane Carrying Brazilian Soccer Players Crashes In Colombia, Killing 71

“The British Aerospace 146 aircraft was carrying Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team to a tournament in Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city”, John Otis reports for NPR from the Colombian capital, Bogotá.

Twenty journalists are among the dead in the airline crash that devastated a Brazilian soccer team, officials said Tuesday.

“The American people stand with the people of Brazil and Colombia in this hard moment”, he said.

On social media, haunting last photos showed the smiling players boarding the flight to Colombia for their match with Atletico Nacional.

The survivors are being treated in hospital. Several first responders who were at the crash scene attended.

Neto and Valmorbida were in “very delicate but stable” condition in intensive care, Dr Guillermo Molina, head of a clinic treating them, told Reuters.

Brazil is in mourning after the crash of a charter plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team.

“In this moment of loss and profound sadness we, the presidents of the Brazilian clubs that publish this note, would like to express our sincerest sentiments of sympathy and solidarity with the Chapecoense Football Association and its fans, especially the families and friends of the athletes, technical commission and officials involved in the tragedy that occurred on Tuesday morning (29th)”, the Nota Oficial read on www.corinthians.com.br.

Martinuccio had been due to travel with the rest of his 22 team-mates on board, but stayed in Brazil to continue his recovery.

Federation Internationale de Football Association 17 is encouraging all players to wear the Chapecoense kit and crest in-game as a show of sympathy and support.

And late last night the club posted a heartbreaking cartoon on their official Facebook page, showing the players arriving at their final destination and receiving their medals. Three survived but are hospitalized in Colombia. “T he dream is now over”, he told reporters. “There has to be a big ceremony”.

As the probe continued, mourning soccer fans in Medellin and the southern Brazilian town of Chapeco, where the team is from, held simultaneous stadium tributes to the victims. The final round of top league matches in Brazil is set for December 11.

In a statement, Club Libertad said: ‘The directives of Club Libertad share with profound pain their condolences for the tragedy involving our brother club Chapecoense and put their first-team players at Chapecoense’s disposal for any sporting event, in homage to the fallen players, with such a brilliant career at both national and worldwide level’.

“For our part, and forever, Chapecoense are champions of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana”, it said in an emotional statement.

“It’s a Cinderella football story”.

“There’ll be a lot of people who are freaked out about plane crashes now and think about not flying”.

The charter jet suffered an electrical failure just before 10pm local time on Monday night, disappearing from controllers’ radar screens and forcing the crew to declare an emergency.

Worldwide flight regulations require aircraft to carry enough reserve fuel so they can fly for 30 minutes after reaching their destination in case they need to circle before landing or fly to another airport.

Saroli’s father, who did not survive, had coached his team to the two-game final of the Copa Sudamericana, the continent’s No 2 club tournament.

“It is very hard, a very great tragedy”.

Brazilian football club Chapecoense has paid homage to members of their squad killed in a Colombian plane crash by sharing a poignant cartoon of the players receiving halos from God in heaven.

He mentioned the tragedy while greeting Portuguese-speaking pilgrims at his public audience Wednesday at the Vatican.

Employees of Chapecoense soccer team pray inside the team’s locker room. Francis said, “I’d like to recall today the Brazilian people’s sorrow”.