The plane was reportedly carrying players from Brazil's Chapecoense football team.
Bogota, Colombia:
A plane carrying 81 people, including members of a Brazilian club football team, crashed late Monday near the Colombian city of Medellin after reporting "electrical failures," officials said. 76 people are reportedly dead. Three of the soccer players are among five reported survivors.
Players Alan Luciano Ruschel, Marcos Danilo Padilha and Jacson Ragnar Follmann were listed as survivors in a statement. Passengers Rafael Correa Gobbato and Ximena Suarez also survived.
Members of Chapecoense Real, a Brazilian football club, were heading to Colombia to play in the South American Cup finals. The event has now been cancelled.
The LAMIA airlines flight originated in Brazil and had made a stop in Santa Cruz, Bolivia before heading to Colombia.
A Medellin airport statement said the plane reported an emergency at 10 pm local time. "It declared it had electrical failures," said an official.
It went down about 50 km from Medellin, Colombia's second largest city, in an area called Cerro Gordo.
Earlier reports had suggested that the plane ran out of fuel.
On its Twitter account, the Medellin airport said the crash site could only be reached overland because of bad weather in the area.
"May God accompany our athletes, officials, journalists and other guests traveling with our delegation," the Brazil football club said in a brief statement on its Facebook page.
A video posted on the page showed the team readying for the flight earlier Monday in Sao Paulo's airport.
The team, from the small city of Chapeco, was in the middle of a fairy tale season. It joined Brazil's first division in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s and made it last week to the Copa Sudamericana finals - the equivalent of the UEFA Europa League tournament - after defeating Argentina's San Lorenzo squad.
(With inputs from agencies)
Players Alan Luciano Ruschel, Marcos Danilo Padilha and Jacson Ragnar Follmann were listed as survivors in a statement. Passengers Rafael Correa Gobbato and Ximena Suarez also survived.
Members of Chapecoense Real, a Brazilian football club, were heading to Colombia to play in the South American Cup finals. The event has now been cancelled.
The LAMIA airlines flight originated in Brazil and had made a stop in Santa Cruz, Bolivia before heading to Colombia.
A Medellin airport statement said the plane reported an emergency at 10 pm local time. "It declared it had electrical failures," said an official.
It went down about 50 km from Medellin, Colombia's second largest city, in an area called Cerro Gordo.
Earlier reports had suggested that the plane ran out of fuel.
On its Twitter account, the Medellin airport said the crash site could only be reached overland because of bad weather in the area.
"May God accompany our athletes, officials, journalists and other guests traveling with our delegation," the Brazil football club said in a brief statement on its Facebook page.
A video posted on the page showed the team readying for the flight earlier Monday in Sao Paulo's airport.
The team, from the small city of Chapeco, was in the middle of a fairy tale season. It joined Brazil's first division in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s and made it last week to the Copa Sudamericana finals - the equivalent of the UEFA Europa League tournament - after defeating Argentina's San Lorenzo squad.
(With inputs from agencies)
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