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| An airplane with 81 people on board, including players from a Brazilian football team, has crashed in Colombia, the country's aviation authorities said. |
Seventy-six people are confirmed dead following a plane crash outside Medellin, Colombia.
A
charter plane carrying 72 passengers -- including players from
Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense -- crashed near Rionegro, Colombia,
according to the country's civil aviation department. Nine crew members
were also on board.
The plane declared an emergency between
the municipalities of La Ceja and La Union, according to a statement
from Colombian aviation officials. The crash occurred in an area called
Cerro El Gordo near Medellin, officials said.
The
civil aviation agency had initially announced that six passengers --
three players, two crew members, and one journalist -- survived the
crash. Authorities announced
that one of those survivors died on the way to the hospital.
At
least two soccer players and one crew member survived, authorities
said. Chapecoense players Alan Luciano Ruschel and Jackson Ragnar
Follmann survived, as did crew member Ximena Suarez. Authorities did not
immediately release the names of the other two survivors.
The plane took off from Bolivia's Viru Viru airport at 6:18 p.m. local time, according to air controller Manuel Palamas.
Officials didn't specify what happened to the plane but did say that the wounded were being transported to medical centers.