Fans cram into Brazil stadium to mourn dead players

Colombian crash pilot reported he was out of fuel: tape

CHAPECÓ, Brazil, Dec 1, (Agencies): Fans of Brazil’s Chapecoense football club whose team was wiped out in a Colombian air crash crammed into the home stadium late Wednesday for tearful prayers around the empty pitch.

The stadium in Chapeco, southern Brazil, was a solid wall of green as fans and mourners dressed in the team shirt stood shoulder to shoulder.

They gathered at exactly the hour their team, which just a few years ago was in Brazil’s gritty lower leagues, should have been kicking off in Medellin, Colombia against Atletico Nacional for the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana finals.

Instead of participating in what would have been the biggest match in the club’s history, the team, many of the chief staff, and 20 Brazilian journalists were killed when their charter plane slammed into a mountainside short of the airport late Monday.

And instead of sitting excitedly in front of televisions to watch the action in Colombia, the people of Chapeco, a provincial city of about 200,000, trooped into their stadium to mourn and join in ecumenical prayer.

Players who had not been on the doomed flight, youth academy members, relatives of those killed and throngs upon throngs of ordinary fans joined together, all in the team colors.

There were few dry eyes as a film was projected to pay homage to the dead teammates.

The team had an outsized presence here and its inspiring story of unknowns who rose to take on champions had spread across Brazil.

“I think this transcends football. It has become something human. This is why I decided to come and pay my respects for the players who left Chapeco with a dream and who will never be forgotten,” said student Daniel Augusto Barrera, 21.

Sudden

Teacher Aline Fonseca, 21, said the sudden deaths of the team members had torn a hole in the community.

“Chapeco is not a big city. We would meet (the players) in the street, anywhere. It’s hard to keep going,” she said.

“This gathering — they deserved twice as a big a gathering,” said pensioner Nelio Dalbosco, 73.

“We have to fight to try to rebuild a team that will be as good and to keep going. Life doesn’t stop,” he said.

The first bodies were expected to be flown back from Colombia, where they are being identified, later this week.

Club leaders said they hope to organize a mass wake at the stadium to give the players a true Chapecoense sendoff.

“Our desire is for a group wake to be held here,” said club official Gelson Della Costa at a press conference, adding that the families’ permission was being sought.

Though the plans have not been finalized and there isn’t even a fixed date for the bodies’ return, emergency services did a dry run Wednesday of the route that the coffins would take from the airport to the stadium.

“It’s still hard to believe. I think we’ll only really take it in when the dead arrive. We are in deep sorrow,” said Valemar Jardine, 50, who runs a newsstand.

For the vice president of the football club, though, reality has already set in — brutally.

“It was very difficult on entering the meeting room in the morning and seeing all the empty seats of our companions, and knowing that I was also on the list to travel but didn’t go in the end,” said Ivan Tozzo, his voice trembling.

At the moment when they were set to take the field as foes, two soccer teams a continent apart raised their voices in unison on Wednesday, paying tribute to the 71 lives lost in a plane crash that cancelled the final of the Copa Sudamericana.

Colombia’s Atletico Nacional, which was ready to host the first leg of the final on Wednesday night, instead held a ceremony in honor of their fallen rivals Chapecoense, whose planed crashed into a hillside outside of Medellin.

Flowers

Rowdy fans scaled walls into the stadium after the 46,000-person arena filled up an hour before the ceremony began. Others brought flowers and teared up during a minute of silence at the scheduled kickoff time.

“We expected an excellent match. They aren’t as big as Nacional but they were coming to give it their all, so tonight we’re Chapecoense fans,” said Lidia Alzate, 41, who came dressed in white along with her two children.

Nearly 3,000 miles (4,800 kms) away, Chapacoense fans also filled their stadium in a remote corner of southern Brazil, holding a second night of vigil for their team whose stunning rise from the fourth division in Brazil to the continent’s top tier had captured the country’s imagination.

With illuminated cell phones aloft, they packed the stadium to its capacity of 20,000 — a tenth of the city’s population — and cheered as their youth players and reserves from the first team did laps around the field.

“There’s so much emotion in this stadium. It feels like a game night,” said Francis Fabio, 25, with tears in his eyes.

A brief video of Colombian fans singing an homage to Chapacoense appeared on the big screen, electrifying the Brazilian stadium as the crowd sang along.

“Let them listen around the continent. We will always remember the champions Chapecoense,” they sang in unison.

Meanwhile, the pilot of a charter plane carrying a Brazilian football Fans of Colombia’s Atletico Nacional soccer team hold a tribute to members of Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team who died in a plane crash, at Atanasio Girardot Stadium where they were to

play a game in Medellin, Colombia on Nov 30, 2016. Brazil’s team was traveling to Colombia to meet up with Atletico Nacional on Wednesday night for the Copa Sudamericana final. (AP)

Fans arrive for a tribute to members of Brazil’s Chapecoense

soccer team. (AP)

team radioed frantically that he was out of fuel minutes before slamming into a hillside near Medellin with 77 people on board, an audio recording showed.

Details of the doomed aircraft’s last harrowing minutes emerged on Wednesday as fans mourned the loss of all but six people on the flight, including most of the Cinderella-story Chapecoense Real football team.

An audio tape aired by the Colombian media showed that the pilot of the LAMIA airlines BAe146 radioed the control tower Monday night seeking priority to land because of a fuel problem.

The operator acknowledges the request but tells pilot Miguel Quiroga he will have to wait seven minutes to land.

“I have a plane below you making its approach ... How much time can you remain in your approach, LimaMike-India?”

“We have a fuel emergency, ma’am, that’s why I am asking you for it at once, full stop.”

Moments later: “I request an immediate descent Lima-Mike-India.”

The timeline was not immediately clear but shortly thereafter the pilot radioed: “Ma’am, Lima-Mike-India 2933 is in total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel.”

The operator responded: “Runway clear and expect rain on the runway Lima-Mike-India 2933. Firefighters alerted.”

The pilot is heard asking: “Vectors, ma’am, vectors to the runway.” Vectors is the term for the navigation service provided to planes by air traffic control.

The operator is heard giving him directions, and asking his altitude.

“Nine thousand feet, ma’am. Vectors! Vectors!”

Those were Quiroga’s last words to the control tower.

Colombia’s Civil Aeronautics agency said the time sequence of the tape was “inexact,” and had no comment on the content of the tape.

But the agency’s air safety chief, Freddy Bonilla, confirmed at a news conference that the plane was out of fuel at the moment of impact.

Bonilla said international rules require aircraft to maintain fuel in reserve when flying between airports, and the LAMIA plane had failed to do so.

The aircraft’s “black box” has been recovered intact and in “perfect condition,” said Civil Aviation director Alfredo Bocanegra, who added however that it would take investigators at least six months to reach a conclusion about the cause of the crash.

The crash killed most of Chapecoense’s squad and 20 journalists traveling with them to the finals of South America’s second-largest club tournament.

The unsung Brazilian club was on the way to crowning a fairytale year in the Copa Sudamericana against Medellin side Atletico Nacional.

The plane was scheduled to make a refueling stop in Bogota, but skipped the Colombian capital and headed straight for Medellin, reported Bolivian newspaper Pagina Siete, citing a representative of the airline.

Fans of Colombia’s Atletico Nacional soccer team hold flags from Brazil and Colombia during a tribute to members of Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team who died in a plane crash, at Atanasio Girardot stadium where they

were to play a game in Medellin, Colombia on Nov 30, 2016. (AP) People take part in a tribute to the victims of a plane crash in the Colombian mountains that killed 71 and virtually wiped out the Brazilian football team Chapecoense Real, at the Atanasio Girardot Stadium in Medellin, Colombia

on Nov 30, 2016. (AFP)