BOGOTA: The death toll from the crash in Colombia of an airliner carrying a Brazilian football team rose to 76 Tuesday as officials said only five people survived the disaster.
“We were able to rescue six people alive but one of them died on the way to the hospital,” Jose Gerardo Acevedo, a police commander, told reporters.
The LAMIA charter plane crashed late Monday in a mountainous area near the city of Medellin with 81 people aboard, including members of the Chapocoense Real, a Brazilian football team that was to play Wednesday in a Copa Sudamericana final.
One of the survivors was Alan Ruschel, a defender for the Chapecoense Real, which was to have played in a final of the Copa Sudamericana on Wednesday against a Colombian team, the head of Colombia’s civil aviation agency, Alfredo Bocanegra, told reporters.
Elkin Osorio, the mayor of the nearby town of La Ceja, said that searchers had found 25 bodies but that there were five survivors.
Earlier, Jose Maria Cordova de Rionegro airport, which serves Medellin, said in a statement that “all possible aid was being mobilized because six survivors are being reported.”
The airport that serves Medellin said that among the 72 passengers and nine crew were members of Chapecoense Real, a Brazilian football club that was supposed to play against Colombia’s Atletico Nacional Wednesday in the South American Cup finals.
“Confirmed, the aircraft license number CP2933 was carrying the team @ChapecoenseReal. Apparently there are survivors,” the Jose Maria Cordova de Rionegro airport said on its Twitter account.
The LAMIA aircraft was flying from Bolivia to Medellin when it crashed in an area called Cerro Gordo about 50 kilometers from the city, Colombia’s second largest.
“It appears that the plane ran out of fuel,” Elkin Ospina, the mayor of the nearby town of La Ceja, told AFP.
He said authorities were on the scene and hospitals and medical centers were preparing to receive the injured.
On its Twitter account, the Medellin airport said the crash site could only be reached overland because of bad weather in the area.
