BOGOTA: The bodies of 25 people have been found at the site in Colombia where a LAMIA airliner crashed with 81 people aboard, including members of a Brazilian football team, a local mayor said Tuesday. Five others survived, he said.
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.
