Why did I get to live when my friends died? It is hard to understand
As Brazil play at Wembley this week, one year on from the country’s tragic plane crash that killed 64 people from the same football club the survivors are still struggling to come to terms with their loss
SHIELDED by six police officers and shuffling along to a soundtrack of boos and condemnation, insults hurtle down at referee Ricardo Marques Ribeiro inside the tunnel at the Arena Conda stadium.
First the players confront Ribeiro, held back only by security forces. Now the official is harangued by finger-jabbing club men in tracksuits. The tunnel is also the media mixed zone, so next come the scolders from the press pack. ‘Filho da puta!’ (Son of a bitch) shouts one radio commentator.
Ribeiro’s crime? To award a penalty for Sport Recife in the seventh minute of added time. In doing so, he thwarted a victory for home side Chapecoense.
Beyond the bowels of the stadium, parents and children continue to bristle. They pause briefly to refuel with empanadas or churros, passing by the kiosks selling local beers.
Amid the fury and indignation, a rueful smile breaks out on the face of one supporter. ‘Maybe, just maybe, things are going back to normal after all,’ she says. ALMOST a year ago, on November 28, 2016, Brazilian top-flight side Chapecoense were on the crest of a wave. In the space of only five years, this modest club, founded in 1973, rose from Brazil’s fourth division in 2009 to the Serie A in 2014.
Having fluttered the hearts of a nation, now came their moment to conquer the continent. The final of the Copa Sudamericana, the second largest club tournament in South America, awaited for the first time. As the chant goes, this was the best trip they had ever been on.
Their challenge: a two-leg final against the Colombian giants Atletico Nacional. Having warmed up with a game against Palmeiras in Sao Paulo, Chapecoense then travelled to Colombia.
First, the club boarded a commercial flight to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia. They then transferred to chartered LaMia flight 2933, carrying the club’s 68-strong party — an amalgamation of players, board members, coaching staff, office personnel and journalists — as well as nine employees from the airline.
On board, some players turned on music and retreated into their headsets. Others were more sociable, playing buraco, a rummystyle card game.
Defender Alan Ruschel recalls: ‘It was a happy moment for the whole team, we were making history for the club. We wanted to seize the day and win the title.’
The flight was early evening. Some fell asleep. Others drifted into day-dreaming, envisioning the title in their grasp and the fiestas that may follow. Eighteen days earlier, Lionel Messi and the Argentina squad flew on the very same plane after a World Cup qualifier.
Ten miles from their destination, players awoke with a jolt. The weather was steady enough, only a touch of gentle rain. But as the plane cruised at 18,000 feet, two of the engines began to rattle and shriek. Then everything went quiet.
‘The lights went out, the engines shut off,’ says the former goalkeeper Jakson Follmann. ‘We heard only the wind. We began to pray. Then I woke up at hospital.’
At 9.58pm, the plane nosedived, crashing into the crown of Cerro Gordo in the Colombian mountains at 8,500 feet. The plane snapped in half. For 71 of the 77 people on board, it was the end.
IN Chapeco, an agricultural town of 200,000 inhabitants in the Santa Catarina state, news began to filter through.
Adriano de Jesus, the brother of the club masseur Serginho, recalls: ‘At 2.45am, a player’s girlfriend called me and she didn’t know if it was true. She had seen it on Facebook. I told her I’d check. Surely it can’t be true?
‘I turned the TV on and tuned into Globo news channel. It said the plane had fallen and they didn’t know if anyone survived. We rushed to the stadium, the press started arriving, so did relatives, because the plane really had crashed. We were waiting for something — anything — to tell us our loved ones were OK. My parents always wake up at 5:30am to have some Mate tea, so I called my sister, who lives with them. I told her to prepare them for the worst.
‘We didn’t know if anyone was alive. But it was a huge trauma. We waited three or four days as they searched the site and returned the corpses. There was a lot of wrong information, a lot of people throwing news about that was not happening. They killed one of the survivors about five times!
‘It was huge agony. Eventually, I managed to reach the doctors and he told me that there was no more hope, that only a few people had survived and the rest were gone.’
Ruschel and Follmann were the lucky ones, along with central defender Helio Neto.
Follmann surrendered part of his right leg and he is now learning to walk again with a new prosthetic limb. He has lost his career but his life continues as a club ambassador. Ruschel is back playing.
‘One of my last memories,’ Ruschel begins, ‘Jakson asked me to change seats. I was sat at the back with the journalists. But he kept nagging me to come and sit with him, so I did. The person sat in my original seat died.’
Central defender Neto was the third player to survive and the last living person to be discovered amid the wreckage. The emergency services found him battered by injuries to the head, thorax, lungs and legs. Upon crash landing, he clenched his jaw with such ferocity that his back teeth were shattered. Emerging from a nine-day coma, he has since made a stunning recovery.
On the weekend I visit, he is not feeling up to reliving his experiences. ‘He is starting to find
The lights went out, engines shut off and we began to pray... I woke at hospital
it more difficult,’ says the press officer. His friend, the former Manchester City striker Robinho, tells Sportsmail: ‘Neto is a great friend. We played together at Santos. I speak with him a lot and every time it leaves us both in tears.
‘It’s very, very sad. I remember when I was at City and I heard the story about Manchester United’s Munich tragedy. This happened nearly 60 years ago and it marks a club forever. ‘Everyone was incredibly sad in Brazil. It is hard to put into words, to express the sense of shock and loss the country felt. To strip it down, these were professionals and they died going to work. That should never happen to anyone. For their families, their children, it is unimaginable grief.’ It is the evening before a game at Chapeco’s Bertoso hotel and in a small hidden-away room, Ruschel is holding court. A talented right-back, he turns out most weeks for his side. In an upstairs side-room, he is telling his story to the cameras. He does two or three of these interviews every week for media outlets all over the world. Heaven knows it is a dreadful ordeal for him but he staggers defiantly through the tears and the torment every time. His life now is accompanied by one question. A search for meaning. Why me? Why do I get to live when my friends perished? He takes a breath: ‘I can’t answer that question. Actually, I can’t, really, It’s hard to understand how and why.’
His eyes moisten and his voice lowers. ‘I have to believe they are God’s plans. God left me here for some reason, so it would be unfair of me to stay in a corner, depressed, not saying anything. I was left here to be a good example for people, a good example of... a guy who fights for life, for his job, a good example of overcoming problems.
‘We can miss these guys without being sad. We can be happy for the lives they lived. We’ll miss them for the rest of our lives but, at the moment, I’m living, sadness doesn’t fit very close. So I try to live my life always representing the ones who aren’t here any more and always make my life the best way possible.’ The survivors have, thus far, shunned medical psychologists. ‘God was my psychologist,’ Ruschel says. ‘He lit my path so I could understand why I stayed here. I’m always taking strength from Him. After what happened “we” search more for God and become more attached to Him because He was responsible for me being here today.’
Chapecoense have sought to move on. They rapidly built a new squad and they are back in the swing of football culture — even sacking new manager Vagner Mancini in June after five games without a win. The club are 14th in the top division with five games to play.
Follmann, who has flown 40 times since the crash, says: ‘The club is standing on its own feet. What sets it apart is that it doesn’t bet more than it can pay, it does everything inside its budget, this is the identity of Chapecoense. Don’t do crazy things. We have no Peles here but we are all equal. Financially, structurally… so now life goes on, obviously never forgetting what happened, but now the club is walking on its own, which is important.’
YET memories abound. In the 71st minute, to mark the 71 victims, the Estadio Conda rises as one, the torch setting on mobile phones is switched on and a powerful light beams around the stadium.
In the press suite, a plaque pays tribute to the journalists who also died. Behind the goal, a female photographer crouches. Sirli Freitas, who works for the club, continues to snap away. Her husband, a journalist, perished on the flight and left behind two children. There is a horror story at every turn. A week before the crash, 22-year-old forward Thiaguinho discovered he was set to be a father. His son, named Tiago in his honour, was born in July. His widow, Graziele de Aquino Alves, said: ‘With your arrival, Tiago, we are now able to feel and inherit a piece of the warrior that was your father, to ease the memories and to alleviate the anguish and the pain in our hearts.’
Adriano has taken over from his brother Serginho as the club’s masseur. ‘When they invited me, I both felt happy and honoured to take my brother’s place. He’s irreplaceable for me, but I feel very proud to be wearing Chapecoense’s shirt.’
Investigations into the causes of the crash make for infuriating reading. Put simply, the plane ran out of fuel. Plus the aircraft was almost 400kg over its weight limit and was not certified to fly at the altitude at which the journey took place. Colonel Freddy Bonilla, Colombia’s secretary for air safety, said: ‘No technical factor was part of the accident, everything involved human error, added to a management factor in the company’s administration and the management and organisation of the flight plans by the authorities in Bolivia.’
Masseur Adriano says: ‘I can’t say it’s anger but it’s a huge pain and it takes time to swallow. My brother left a daughter aged 21 and his two-year-old son. It could have been avoided. It causes rage because it wasn’t a mechanical failure, it was human. To me, it still feels like they are on a long journey, as though they will arrive home at any moment.’
In the city centre, memorials remain. Flower bouquets rest against the town hall and graffiti is scrawled on walls. Many high streets have the club crest emblazoned by shop signs. The entrance to commercial hotels place the Chapecoense badge on the revolving doors. Taxi drivers wear their club’s colours with pride.
One supporter says: ‘Torino 1949. Manchester United 1958. Chapecoense 2016. Football is bound by triumph and tragedy.’ Ruschel adds: ‘We move forward but we never, ever forget.’
He clenched his jaw with such ferocity that his back teeth were shattered