Chapecoense awarded title after crash of doomed flight

ASUNCION/LA PAZ: The South American Football Confederation CONMEBOL have declared Chapecoense AF the winner of the 2-milliondollar Copa Sudamericana following an airplane crash last week that killed most of the team on its way to the cup finals.

In a press release, the regional football authority said it had responded to a request by Colombia’s Atletico Nacional club, which had been scheduled to play against Chapecoense for the trophy, that it be awarded to the Brazilian team as an homage to those lost in the crash.

CONMEBOL said it would also award Atletico Nacional a special “fair play” prize in recognition of the “consideration and respect” it showed to Chapecoense after the tragedy.

Seventy-one people were killed when the Lamia Airlines charter plane hired by Chapecoense to carry the team, officials and journalists from a stopover in northern Bolivia to the first of two final matches crashed near Medellin, Colombia, on November 28, apparently because it ran out of fuel.

Only six people survived the crash: three Chapecoense players, a journalist and two members of the flight crew. One of them, flight mechanic Edwin Tumiri, told Colombian media Monday no one aboard the doomed plane knew they were in danger.

“No one knew what was happening in that moment. We all thought we were going to land normally – they had told us to fasten our seatbelts because we were about to land. No one expected it, which is why no one screamed,” he told Bogota’s Blu Radio.

According to a recording of the conversation released by Colombian media, pilot and Lamia co-owner Miguel Quiroga told air traffic controllers the plane was out of fuel, moments before it disappeared from radar and crashed into mountains less than 40 kilometres from its destination.

The Avro RJ-85 had a maximum range of about 3,000 kilometres, the length of the flight from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, to Medellin. An employee of Bolivia’s civil aviation authority reportedly insisted the plane make plans to refuel, but was rebuffed.

Tumiri said refuelling would normally have been his job – but that Quiroga told him the flight would travel straight to Medellin without refuelling.

Bolivia’s Defence Minister Reymi Ferreira on Monday said Quiroga was to blame for the crash for having skipped a refuelling stop in the Colombian capital Bogota in an apparent attempt to cut costs.

He told local media Quiroga’s double role as owner and pilot represented a “serious problem of incompatibility.”

“There was an economic criterion to save costs of the operation which caused this tragedy,” he added.

Ferreira also raised questions about the company’s licence, saying there were also indications of “influence peddling” between Bolivia’s civil aviation authority and Lamia given that the son of Lamia director Gustavo Vargas Gamboa had formerly served as director of the Bolivian authority that issues licenses.

Lamia, a charter airline, had been issued the same kind of time-unlimited operating licence normally given only to airlines with regularly scheduled flights.

International footballers including Ronaldinho and Eidur Gudjohnsen have offered to play for the devastated Chapecoense as it rebuilds. – dpa