Doomed football team’s crash plane ran out of fuel

NEWLY released details from the Chapecoense air crash suggest that the plane ran out of fuel before coming down, according to the Colombian authorities.

In a leaked recording, the pilot, Miguel Alejandro Quiroga Murakami, repeatedly asks for permission to land, saying “there´s no fuel…we have total electronic failure.”

Colombia’s Civil Aeronautics agency confirmed after inspecting the site, the jet “did not have fuel at the moment of impact”.

Experts have also confirmed that the lack of explosion on impact may also suggest that the aircraft had run out of fuel.

Civil aviation director Alfredo Bocanegra said at a news conference that “upon arriving at the scene of the accident, and having been able to do an inspection of all the remains and parts of the plane, we can affirm, clearly, that the aircraft did not have fuel at the moment of impact.”

The plane’s black box has been sent to the UK to be opened and it is said it could take up to six months to fully investigate the accident.

The doomed flight, which came down at around 22:15 on Monday as it attempted to land in Medellin, North-East Colombia, was carrying 77 people including the Brazilian football team Chapecoense who were due to play against Atletico Nacional in the city on Wednesday. The plane also carried 21 journalists.

Six passengers survived but 19 players and 20 journalists were lost. One of the survivors, the club’s goalkeeper, has had a leg amputated and may lose his other foot.