Bodies of Colombia plane crash victims flown home

MEDELLÍN, Colombia – The bodies of the 71 victims killed in a plane crash in Colombia that wiped out a Brazilian football team began arriving home Friday, as mourners prepared a massive funeral.

The remains of the first victim, Paraguayan crew member Gustavo Encina, were handed over to his family early Friday in a coffin draped in his country's flag.

The other victims -- 64 Brazilians, five Bolivians and a Venezuelan -- were being flown home on a series of flights throughout the day.

"What we want now more than anything else is to go home, to take our friends and brothers home. The wait is the worst," said Roberto Di Marche, a cousin of football team Chapecoense Real's late director Nilson Folle Junior.

In the club's hometown, the southern Brazilian city of Chapeco, more than 100,000 people -- about half the city's population -- are expected to attend a memorial service Saturday in honor of the team, whose fairytale season was tragically cut short by the Monday night crash.

FIFA chief Gianni Infantino canceled a trip to Australia to attend the funeral.

Officials said Brazilian President Michel Temer would likely travel to Chapeco as well.

The last of the bodies were due to arrive in Chapeco early Saturday.

They will then go on a funeral procession through the city, ending with a ceremony at the team's stadium.

Authorities are still investigating what caused the charter flight to smash into the mountains outside Medellin, where Chapecoense was due to play the biggest match in its history -- the finals of the Copa Sudamericana, South America's second-largest cup tournament.

A harrowing recording has emerged of the panicked pilot asking the control tower for priority to land because he was out of fuel.

Colombia's civil aviation safety chief, Freddy Bonilla, said the plane disregarded international rules on fuel reserves.

- Bolivian probe –

The Bolivia-based charter company, LAMIA, had its permit suspended Thursday, and the government there ordered an investigation into its operations.

Bolivia has also suspended the executive staff of its civil aviation authority and the airports administrator for the duration of the probe.

Investigators are examining pilot error and air traffic control problems as possible factors in the crash.

Pilot Miguel Alejandro Quiroga's remains were flown home Friday along with four Bolivian crew who died in the crash.

The disaster killed most of Chapecoense's squad and 20 journalists traveling with them to cover the match.

LAMIA, which specializes in flying Latin American football teams, had ferried local clubs and national sides around the region, including superstar Lionel Messi.

- Haunting crash scene –

Six people miraculously survived the crash.

All remained hospitalized Friday.

"I'm in shock," said flight attendant Ximena Suarez Otterburg, who was found injured but conscious after the crash.

"God can't explain the pain I feel," she wrote on Facebook.

Other survivors were in various stages of recovery.

Chapecoense defender Alan Ruschel was in intensive care after back surgery, while goalkeeper Jakson Follmann has undergone multiple surgeries including the amputation of his right leg.

A haunting video meanwhile emerged of the moment rescuers found Bolivian crew member Erwin Tumiri.

"Alex! Angel! David! Where's my crew?" shouted the visibly disoriented man, as rescuers tried to calm him.

- Devastated families –

Co-pilot Ovar Goytia's 18-year-old son recalled his final conversation with his father.

"I spoke with my daddy 10 minutes before the flight took off. I only spoke to him to say goodbye and make sure everything was OK. He just said to take care of the home, of my brothers, that I was the man of the house, and that he'd be back," he told AFP.

Getting the news "was a dagger in my heart," he said. "As if my world was ending."

Goytia, who is in flight school to follow in his father's footsteps, called his dad a "great pilot" and said he was sure he did everything possible to save his passengers' lives.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Fans cram into Brazil football stadium to mourn dead players

CHAPECO, Brazil -- Fans of Brazil's Chapecoense football club whose team was wiped out in a Colombian air crash crammed into the home stadium late Wednesday for tearful prayers around the empty pitch.

The stadium in Chapeco, southern Brazil, was a solid wall of green as fans and mourners dressed in the team shirt stood shoulder to shoulder.

They gathered at exactly the hour their team, which just a few years ago was in Brazil's gritty lower leagues, should have been kicking off in Medellin, Colombia against Atletico Nacional for the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana finals.

Instead of participating in what would have been the biggest match in the club's history, the team, many of the chief staff, and 20 Brazilian journalists were killed when their charter plane slammed into a mountainside short of the airport late Monday.

And instead of sitting excitedly in front of televisions to watch the action in Colombia, the people of Chapeco, a provincial city of about 200,000, trooped into their stadium to mourn and join in ecumenical prayer.

Players who had not been on the doomed flight, youth academy members, relatives of those killed and throngs upon throngs of ordinary fans joined together, all in the team colors.

There were few dry eyes as a film was projected to pay homage to the dead teammates.

The team had an outsized presence here and its inspiring story of unknowns who rose to take on champions had spread across Brazil.

"I think this transcends football. It has become something human. This is why I decided to come and pay my respects for the players who left Chapeco with a dream and who will never be forgotten," said student Daniel Augusto Barrera, 21.

Teacher Aline Fonseca, 21, said the sudden deaths of the team members had torn a hole in the community.

"Chapeco is not a big city. We would meet (the players) in the street, anywhere. It's hard to keep going," she said.

"This gathering -- they deserved twice as a big a gathering," said pensioner Nelio Dalbosco, 73.

"We have to fight to try to rebuild a team that will be as good and to keep going. Life doesn't stop," he said.

- Hard to take in -

The first bodies were expected to be flown back from Colombia, where they are being identified, later this week.

Club leaders said they hope to organize a mass wake at the stadium to give the players a true Chapecoense sendoff.

"Our desire is for a group wake to be held here," said club official Gelson Della Costa at a press conference, adding that the families' permission was being sought.

Though the plans have not been finalized and there isn't even a fixed date for the bodies' return, emergency services did a dry run Wednesday of the route that the coffins would take from the airport to the stadium.

"It's still hard to believe. I think we'll only really take it in when the dead arrive. We are in deep sorrow," said Valemar Jardine, 50, who runs a newsstand.

For the vice president of the football club, though, reality has already set in -- brutally.

"It was very difficult on entering the meeting room in the morning and seeing all the empty seats of our companions, and knowing that I was also on the list to travel but didn't go in the end," said Ivan Tozzo, his voice trembling.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Plane crash kills dream of football team that defied odds

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Traveling on the doomed airliner that crashed in Colombia overnight were the players and staff of a Brazilian football club about to complete a fairy tale journey from unknowns to would-be South American champions.

The LAMIA charter plane went down near Medellin late Monday with 81 people aboard and so far only six are reported to have survived. At least two were said by officials to be football players.

For the Chapecoense Real team the disaster means the cruel end of a story that had been meant to climax with an unexpected chance for glory on Wednesday against Colombia's Atletico Nacional in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final.

"The pain is terrible. Just as we had made it, I will not say to the top, but to have national prominence, a tragedy like this happens. It is very difficult, a very great tragedy," club vice-president Ivan Tozzo told SporTV.

Only a few years ago Chapecoense was just another a gritty outfit in the Brazilian lower leagues, where players, unable to afford cars, took the bus to training. The stadium in Chapeco, a city of 200,000 people in the southern Santa Catarina state, didn't have a gym.

The steep climb from minnow to contender started in 2009 when Chapecoense entered the fourth division. Back then, the team's top goalscorer Bruno Rangel told Brazilian newspaper Lance, even the club's bus was "was very old."

"But a lot has changed in the club since I arrived," he said. "There are still prejudices against the club but more because we're from the (country's) interior. That's diminishing, it's true. Every day we're more respected."

By 2014 the club had fought its way into the lower half of the elite table, but the side wanted more. Even at this point Chapecoense was almost ignored by its own public, with only about 7,000 people turning up to home games, according to Globoesporte website.

SHOT FOR STARDOM

Chapecoense entered the running for the Copa Sudamericana for the first time in 2015 and didn't disappoint.

In the club's first ever international tournament, the one-time unknowns didn't go all the way, but they performed bravely, even defeating Argentina's famed River Plate club.

This year, things seemed to be going wrong. The coach credited with Chapecoense's miraculous rise, Guto Ferreira, walked out and his replacement Caio Junior lost his first game against the lowly Cuiaba.

But the little team that could roared back, taking down Argentina's Independiente and Junior de Barranquilla. They were going to the final to meet the reigning Copa Libertadores champions Atletico Nacional and no one would write them off anymore.

On the way to Colombia, the team stopped off in Sao Paulo to play the penultimate game of Brazil's domestic league. Here they lost against Palmeiras, the team which ended the season as Brazilian champion. But there was a sense that the players had their minds on the bigger challenge awaiting them against Atletico.

"I see this is a group of winners. It's as if God has put us precisely here today to taste this and to appreciate even more the challenge on Wednesday," the coach said after the Sao Paulo game.

Now their dreams have met a devastating end and on Wednesday at what would have been an intriguing first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final there'll be only silence.

Back in Chapeco, the stadium was opened up to greet grieving families and fans.

"We're all here at the stadium to help the people connected," said Tozzo.

"It hasn't really sunk in yet. We have to trust in God. Out team must carry on," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com