Chapecoense air crash: plane ”ran out of fuel”

Colombian authorities say evidence is growing that a plane carrying a Brazilian football team crashed because it ran out of fuel as it tried to land. The plane had no fuel on impact, an official said, corroborating audio of the pilot asking to land because of a fuel shortage and electric failure. The capital Bogota […]

Colombian authorities say evidence is growing that a plane carrying a Brazilian football team crashed because it ran out of fuel as it tried to land.

The plane had no fuel on impact, an official said, corroborating audio of the pilot asking to land because of a fuel shortage and electric failure.

The capital Bogota was mentioned on the flight plan as a possible refueling stop, but the plane did not land there.

The plane plunged into a mountainside near Medellin late on Monday. Only six of the 77 people on board the plane survived. “Having been able to do an inspection of all of the remains and parts of the plane, we can affirm clearly that the aircraft did not have fuel at the moment of impact,” civil aviation chief Alfredo Bocanegra told a news conference.

Freddy Bonilla, another aviation official, said regulations stipulated that aircraft must have 30 minutes of fuel in reserve to reach an alternative airport in an emergency, but “in this case the plane did not have” it.