Coffins for Brazilian players are prepared as families mourn and investigation continues

Record ID: 75041

  • Title: Coffins for Brazilian players are prepared as families mourn and investigation continues
  • Date: 1st December 2016
  • Summary: MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA (DECEMBER 1, 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PERSONNEL FROM FUNERAL HOME PLACING FLAG FOR THE CHAPECOENSE TEAM OVER COFFIN GENERAL VIEW OF COFFINS FOR PLAYERS FROM CHAPECOENSE TEAM COFFINS WITH CHAPECOENSE FLAGS DRAPED OVER THEM FLAG DRAPED OVER COFFIN READING: "CHAMPIONS FOREVER" COFFIN BEING BROUGHT INTO ROOM SCULPTURE OF AN ANGEL RELATIVE LOOKING AT COFFIN (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) RELATIVE OF MEMBER OF THE CHAPCOENSE TEAM, ROBERTO DE MARQUE, SAYING: "What is most wanted now is to go home, to take our brothers, take them home because waiting is the worst thing. The Colombian authorities are helping very much. How the day was spent yesterday with everyone is something I couldn't have imagined. It is not going to bring our families back to us but it is a comfort." RIBBONS WITH PLAYERS' NAMES ON THEM VARIOUS OF COFFINS COVERED IN TEAM FLAGS AND RIBBONS WITH PLAYERS NAMES ON THEM (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) VICE-MINISTER OF BOLIVIAN POLICE, PEDRO VILLA, SAYING: "A lot of pain, a lot of sadness because to lose a human life costs a lot. Above all, professional. Children were left behind. It is a deep feeling that has moved President Evo Morales. He will give all the support necessary in Bolivia." VARIOUS OF COFFINS VARIOUS OF POLICE OUTSIDE FUNERAL HOME
  • Embargoed: 16th December 2016 19:13
  • Keywords: Chapecoense soccer team Copa Sudamericana
  • Location: MEDELLIN AND BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
  • City: MEDELLIN AND BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
  • Country: Colombia
  • Reuters ID: LVA0015B20TON
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Preparations were made on Thursday (December 1) to repatriate the bodies of the Brazilian soccer players and Bolivian citizens who were killed in a Colombian plane crash earlier this week.
    In a Medellin funeral home, flags bearing the team logo and ribbons with players' names were draped over dozens of coffins waiting to carry the remains back to Brazil.
    Family members watched the process, still trying to absorb the shock of the tragedy that killed 71 people, wiping out the Brazilian Chapocoense soccer team.
    "What is most wanted now is to go home, to take our brothers, take them home because waiting is the worst thing. The Colombian authorities are helping very much. How the day was spent yesterday with everyone is something I couldn't have imagined. It is not going to bring our families back to us but it is a comfort," said Roberto de Marque, the relative of a member of the team.
    Bolivian authorities were also on hand.
    "A lot of pain, a lot of sadness because to lose a human life costs a lot. Above all, professional. Children were left behind. It is a deep feeling that has moved President Evo Morales. He will give all the support necessary in Bolivia," said vice minister of the Bolivia police, Pedro Villa.
    In Bogota, forensic authorities said the remains had been identified.
    "The necropsies have been completed, which included radiological procedures to determine the mechanisms with accuracy," said Carlos Eduardo Valdez, the director of the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences.
    Meanwhile, Bolivian authorities on Thursday suspended the license of the tiny charter airline that owned the doomed charter plane.
    Monday night's disaster sent shock waves across the global soccer community and plunged Latin America's largest nation, Brazil, into mourning as it reels from a deep recession and political crisis. The small Chapecoense team was traveling to the biggest game in its history, the final of the Copa Sudamericana.
    Colombian investigators said the crash might have resulted from lack of fuel on the plane operated by charter airline LAMIA Bolivia.
    Freddy Bonilla, secretary of airline security at Colombia's aviation authority, said investigators combing the crash site on a wooded hillside outside of Medellin found no traces of fuel in the wreckage of the BAe 146 made by Britain's BAE Systems Plc.
    Bolivia said on Thursday that it was immediately suspending LAMIA's operation certificate and would replace the management of its aviation authority in the wake of the crash, to ensure a transparent investigation. It said the moves implied no wrongdoing.
    LAMIA Chief Executive Officer Gustavo Vargas on Wednesday said the plane had been correctly inspected before departure and should have had enough fuel for about 4-1/2 hours.
    Only six on board the flight survived: three Chapecoense team members, a journalist and two Bolivian crew members.
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