Brazil football team Chapecoense in Colombia plane crash

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17 years 11 months

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Sad news;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38140981

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18 years 11 months

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BBC now reporting that there are survivors. Aircraft is an Avro RJ85.

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12 years 3 months

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4 survivors (one had died later).

La Ceja (crash site) is a hilly Andin plateau with nowhere to land. If they attempted to crash land as some have reported following a fuel starvation, it was the worst place to be forced to do so.

All my condolences to Brazil. Not the best time they have gone through.

I just noticed that the plane had been registered twice by the same company. Don't know if it is usual.

Sept. 2014 YV3035 LAMIA new registration
Jan. 2015 CP-2933 LAMIA new registration

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Sad news. RIP to all souls lost and condolences to those bereaved.

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Ho-hum...

The pilot of the chartered plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team told air traffic controllers he had run out of fuel and desperately pleaded for permission to land before crashing into the Andes, according to a leaked recording of the final minutes of the doomed flight

In the sometimes chaotic exchange with the air traffic tower, the pilot of the British-built jet could be heard repeatedly requesting authorization to land because of “fuel problems”. A controller explained another plane had been diverted with mechanical problems and had priority, instructing the pilot to wait seven minutes.

As the plane circled in a holding pattern, the pilot grew more desperate. “Complete electrical failure, without fuel,” he said in the tense final moments before the plane set off on a four-minute death spiral that ended with it slamming into a mountainside Monday night.

Just before going silent the pilot said he was flying at an altitude of 9,000 feet and made a final plea to land: “Vectors, señorita. Landing vectors.”

The recording, obtained on Wednesday by Colombian media, appeared to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic exchange. These, along with the lack of an explosion upon impact, point to a rare case of fuel running out as a cause of the crash of the jetliner, which experts said was flying at its maximum range.

For now, authorities are avoiding singling out any one cause of the crash, which killed all but six of the 77 people on board, including members of Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team traveling to Medellin for the Copa Sudamericana finals the culmination of a fairy tale season that had electrified soccer-crazed Brazil.

A full investigation is expected to take months and will review everything from the 17-year-old aircraft’s flight and maintenance history to the voice and instruments data in the black boxes recovered Tuesday at the crash site on a muddy hillside. The US National Transportation Safety Board was taking part in the investigation because the plane’s engines were made by an American manufacturer...

...Before being taken offline, the website of LaMia, the Bolivian-based charter company, said the Avro RJ85 jetliner’s maximum range was 2,965km (1,600 nautical miles) – just under the distance between Medellín and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the flight originated carrying close to full passenger capacity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/30/colombia-plane-crash-pilot-out-of-fuel-chapecoense-brazil

I hope that bit underlined is a misprint because it appears to say that the distance between Santa Cruz and Medellin is greater than the aircraft's maximum range, which might explain a few things.

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ASN says the distance, as the crow flies, is 2960km.
The Guardian (above) says the airlines website listed the maximum range as 2965km, before being taken offline; would that include the normal plus emergency (or whatever it is called) fuel?

Either way, it doesn't sound like flying was being taken seriously, safety-wise...

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Reminds me of the Manchester Football team disaster.
Thoughts for all involved.

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The airline has been suspended.

International flight regulations require aircraft to carry enough reserve fuel to fly for 30 minutes after reaching their destination.

“In this case, sadly, the aircraft did not have enough fuel to meet the regulations for contingency,” said Freddy Bonilla, secretary of airline security at Colombia’s aviation authority.

Bolivian authorities said they were suspending LaMia’s operating license and replacing the management of its aviation authority to ensure a transparent investigation. It said that neither decision implied wrongdoing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/01/colombia-plane-crash-bolivia-suspends-airline-lamia-chapecoense

Did the airliner declare mayday? The airliner before it had apparently declared an emergency with a fuel leak, but would a declaration of mayday have altered the order of ATC's attention?

In addition the ATC controller has received death threats since crash.

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12 years 3 months

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Certain company use to send their plane with not enough fuel to save cost (weight) and then proceed with a request for emergency upon reaching destination. This has happened everywhere (and even in Eu). We might have here a similar case with an ATC controller tired of hearing flight reaching their intended destination just to call a fuel emergency (there was enough diverting possibilities on the way and over Columbia).

Anyway, good to see that airline suspended. Never such flight plan should have been granted.

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Yet more revelations on this sad affair...

The airplane crash that decimated the Chapecoense football team has threatened to stir up a diplomatic storm after the Bolivian air traffic controller who revealed irregularities about the flight requested asylum in Brazil.

Celia Castedo, an official from the Viru Viru airport in Santa Cruz, fled across the border rather than face an investigation by Bolivian authorities who suspect the small LaMia chartered plane took off with a flight plan showing the intended route would push the limits of the plane’s maximum possible flight time...

...Castedo said the accident could have been prevented if her warnings had been heeded in Bolivia, where the plane had made a stopover. She told Brazilian officials she needed asylum to avoid repercussions from the authorities.

However, the Bolivian interior minister, Carlos Romero, said Castedo had crossed the border illegally to avoid justice. She is accused of negligence for allegedly approving the flight.

“There is no argument to justify an asylum request,” Romero told reporters. “Logically, in a case like this there should be a process of automatic expulsion (from Brazil).”

Several high-ranking aviation officials have already been suspended in Bolivia. The government there also filed a lawsuit against LaMia on Monday.

While Brazilian officials consider Castedo’s request for refuge, prosecutors from the two countries will meet to discuss how to cooperate on the investigation.

The main focus is likely to be the captain of the flight, Miguel Quiroga, who was also one of the owners of LaMia. Investigators will examine allegations that his business interests may have prompted him to buy the minimum amount of fuel for the journey, rather than add sufficient extra to account for delays and diversions – as is stipulated in aviation regulations. A planned refuelling stop was also abandoned.

Further muddying the waters are reports in the Spanish and Brazilian media this week that claim Quiroga was due to go on trial for abandoning the air force.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/06/colombia-plane-crash-bolivia-air-traffic-controller-brazil

Investigators will examine allegations that his business interests may have prompted him to buy the minimum amount of fuel for the journey, rather than add sufficient extra to account for delays and diversions – as is stipulated in aviation regulations. A planned refuelling stop was also abandoned.

The part of the statement in bold part is not true, as the flight distance was at the limit of the aircraft's range, without reserves. They could never have carried legal reserves for that flight sector, on that plane, without a refuelling stop. Probably a bit of uninformed media speculation.

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You are absolutely right. But maybe writing that way was much easier for the reader than explaining why another plane should have been substituted while still putting the focus on Fuel savings and revenue.

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Doomed jet ran out fuel before crash

A statement by the Civil Aeronautics agency said the conclusion was based on the plane’s black boxes and other evidence. It said the evidence points to human error rather than technical problems or sabotage.
[...]
The BAE 146 Avro RJ85 has a maximum range was 2,965 kilometers (1,600 nautical miles) — just under the distance between Medellin and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the plane had taken off at almost full capacity.

The plane was in the air for about 4 hours and 20 minutes when air traffic controllers in Medellin put it into a holding pattern because another flight had reported a suspected fuel leak and was given priority.

In a recording of a radio message from the pilot of the LaMia flight, he can be heard repeatedly requesting permission to land due to a lack of fuel and a “total electric failure.”

"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 organization of the flight plans by the authorities in Bolivia," Colombia's Secretary for Air Safety Colonel Freddy Bonilla told journalists.

Aviation authorities in Bolivia and the airline "accepted conditions for the flight presented in the flight plan that were unacceptable," Bonilla added.

Besides a lack of fuel, the plane was over its weight limit by nearly 400 kilograms (881 lbs) and was not certified to fly at the altitude at which the journey took place, Bonilla said.

Passengers on board screamed for their lives as the jet plummeted to the ground, survivors have told.

Source:
USA Today.com
The Mirror.co.uk