Colombia plane crash: 76 dead, 3 Brazil football players among 5 survivors

Three players from Brazil’s Chapecoense Real football team were among those rescued from the plane crash near the Colombian city of Medellin. Rescue halted due to heavy rain.

Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense were on board a plane carrying 81 people that crashed in Colombia killing 76 people, police said on Tuesday.

The plane was carrying members of Associação Chapecoense de Futebol, commonly known as Chapecoense or ACF. (Getty Images)

Chapecoense, from Brazil’s top league, had been flying in to face Atletico Nacional of Medellin in the first leg of Wednesday’s Sudamericana final, South America’s equivalent of the Europa League.

“Six people were rescued alive, but unfortunately one died. The rest of the occupants unfortunately died. The tragic toll is 76 victims,” Jose Gerardo Acevedo, regional police commander, told journalists.

The club said in a statement that it would not be making any official comments until it had more information from Colombian authorities about Monday night’s crash. Brazilian media reported that three players were among the survivors.

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The charter flight was carrying 72 passengers and nine crew, when it crashed around 10:15 p.m. on Monday. Heavy rain first hampered and then halted rescue operations. Officials told local media that bodies would be removed once the sun rose.

The Chapecoense football team was among the 72 passengers and 9 crew on board the charter aircraft when it crashed around 10:15 p.m. on Monday. The Colombia’s civil aviation authority published a full passenger list on its Facebook page.

The South American football federation suspended all games and other activities after the crash.

It was the first time the small club from Chapeco had ever reached the final of a major South American club competition but they were underdogs against a club going for a rare double after winning the Copa Libertadores in July.

A video published on the team’s Facebook page showed the team readying for the flight earlier Monday in Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos international airport.

The team, from the small city of Chapeco, joined Brazil’s first division in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s and made it to the Copa Sudamericana finals last week by defeating Argentina’s legendary San Lorenzo squad. Chapecoense were the 21st biggest club in Brazil in terms of revenue, bringing in 46 million reais ($13.5 million) in 2015, according to an annual rich list compiled by Brazilian bank Itau BBA.