Pope asks for prayers for Colombia crash victims

A plane carrying players from Brazilian football team Chapecoense has crashed in Colombia, killing 76 people, authorities said on Tuesday.

Brazilian football is rallying around Chapecoense in the aftermath of the awful air crash that claimed the lives of 76 members of the club’s playing staff, coaches, executives and associated journalists on Monday night.

One of the survivors died on the way to the hospital, officials said. Only six people survived, three of them from the team.

Relatives of Brazilian journalist Guilherme Marques, who died in a plane accident that crashed into Colombian jungle, mourn during a mass in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 29, 2016. There were conflicting reports that the plane ran out of fuel or that there was an electrical problem.

The aviation department’s statement said that passengers belonged to a Brazilian soccer club called Chapecoense. “She is upset, the news has hurt everyone who knew them”, he said.

Less than a week ago, the streets of this small farming city rang with cheers and firecrackers as the team punched their ticket to the final of the Sudamericana Cup, capping a fairytale rise to Brazil’s top competition from fourth division in 2009. Chapecoense was to play Colombia’s Atletico Nacional in the first game of the two-legged Copa Sudamericana final on Wednesday and was to host Nacional on December 7 – but not in its own 22,000-seat stadium, considered too small for such a prestigious championship.

Brazil’s 21st biggest club by revenue, it has built success on a frugal spending policy that eschewed big-money signings and concentrated on blending young talent and experienced journeymen.Several hundred dejected fans gathered around the team’s Conda stadium in Chapeco, many of them wearing Chapecoense’s green strip.

Chapecoense player Alejandro Martinuccio, who didn’t travel with the squad, asked everyone to pray for his teammates and told Argentine radio: “I only survived because I was injured”.

The plane, which made a stop in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was transporting the first division Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil.

The short-haul charter crashed in Medellin on its way to Colombia for the Copa Sudamericana final.

The team were flying to what was billed as the biggest match in their history – the final of the Copa Sudamericana.

Brazil’s president Michel Tamer was among those to pay tribute to the victims and declared three days of national mourning.

Starvation of fuel is “very, very rare in commercial aviation terms because there are so many checks and balances to make sure you have enough fuel on board”, said Grant Brophy, an air safety investigator.

Yet in the darkest of times, Chapecoense itself says it’s up to its city, its fans and the country to focus on the future.

Flamengo, Palmeiras and Sao Paulo are the clubs to have offered help.

Argentina legend Diego Maradona was among those who sent condolences to the victims’ families over Facebook.

The club also put in a request to the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) that the club be exempt from relegation for the next three seasons.

At least 20 journalists travelling with the team were killed.