Why the Chapecoense football team’s plane ran out of fuel

By R.J.E.

MUCH remains unknown about Lamia Airlines flight 2933, which crashed into the hills of Colombia on November 28th, killing 71 of the 77 people on board (see article in this week’s print edition). Fans of Chapecoense, a Brazilian football team, must wait to hear the full story of how a chartered plane carrying 22 of their players and several staff members failed to arrive safely. (Only three players are among the survivors.) Many Brazilian reporters covering the crash knew one of the 21 journalists on board, and are starting to ask why these lives were lost in such devastating circumstances.

The chartered plane was to fly the team from Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia to the Colombian city of Medellín for the biggest match of their lives, the final of a continental club tournament. An earlier commercial flight had brought them from São Paulo in Brazil to Bolivia. The private jet was scheduled to stop for refuelling in Cobija, in Bolivia’s north. But it never did. In a black-box recording leaked to the press, the pilot, Miguel Quiroga, could be heard saying that the plane was running out of fuel as it approached Medellín. Colombian authorities have confirmed that the plane had no fuel when it crashed.