LA PAZ/MEDELLIN, Colombia (Reuters) - Bolivian authorities on Thursday suspended the license of a tiny charter airline whose plane crashed in Colombia this week after apparently running out of fuel, killing 71 people and wiping out a Brazilian soccer team on its way to a regional cup final.

Monday night's disaster sent shock waves across the global soccer community and plunged Brazil, Latin America's largest nation, into mourning. The small Chapecoense team was traveling on a charter flight operated by airline LAMIA Bolivia to the biggest game in its history, the final of the Copa Sudamericana.

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, signaling that the crash may have resulted from lack of fuel.

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.

Medellin air traffic controllers asked the LAMIA pilot to wait while another flight made an emergency landing. Details on the length of the wait and problems with the other flight were not immediately available.

Air traffic controller Yaneth Molina, who received the distress call, said in a letter written to colleagues that she had received death threats following the crash.

"I did all that was humanly possible and technically necessary to preserve the lives of the passengers, but unfortunately my efforts weren't enough," Molina wrote in her letter, which was later released to the press.

A crackling recording obtained by Colombian media of Bolivian pilot Miguel Quiroga's final words showed he told the control tower at Medellin's airport that the plane was "in total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel."

He requested urgent permission to land, and then the audio went silent.

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. In such situations, it is at the pilot's discretion whether to refuel, Vargas said.

Only 0.5 percent of accidents on record were blamed on low fuel, according to the U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation.

In the soccer club's small farming hometown of Chapeco in southern Brazil, workers on Thursday erected temporary structures in the stadium to shelter the coffins of 51 victims - players, staff and journalists - expected to arrive back on Friday for an open-air wake.

Some 100,000 fans, about half the city's population, were expected to attend, as were Brazilian President Michel Temer and Gianni Infantino, president of world soccer governing body FIFA.

On Wednesday night, when the Copa Sudamericana final had been scheduled, tens of thousands of fans assembled in tribute at Chapecoense's arena and the stadium in Medellin of rival team Atletico Nacional.

"We Brazilians will never forget the way in which Colombians have felt as their own the pain of this terrible disaster that ended the historic dream of Chapecoense," Foreign Minister Jose Serra told the crowds in Medellin.

Fox Sports Brasil, which lost six of its journalists in the crash, broadcast 90 minutes of a black screen in the time slot of Wednesday's game.

A spokesman for Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch said an inspector for the agency and Colombian officials would transport the aircraft's black boxes back to the United Kingdom, where the information will be downloaded.

Only six on board the flight survived: three Chapecoense team members, a journalist and two Bolivian crew members.

Some have wondered why Chapecoense used the charter company instead of a commercial airline. Club Vice President Luiz Antonio Palaoro said LAMIA had a track record of transporting soccer teams around South America, and it had used the airline before.

"We are dealing with the humanitarian aspect of the families and the victims," Palaoro told reporters in Chapeco. "After that, we are going to have to think about restructuring the team and also the appropriate legal measures." Among surviving players, goalkeeper Jackson Follmann's right leg was amputated, while defender Helio Neto was in intensive care with severe trauma to his skull, thorax and lungs. Fellow defender Alan Ruschel had spinal surgery. Two of the Bolivian flight crew, Ximena Suarez and Erwin Tumiri, were bruised but not in critical condition, while journalist Rafael Valmorbida was treated in intensive care for multiple rib fractures that partly collapsed a lung. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The recording captures the final moments of the plane before it crashed

Bolivia's aviation authority has suspended the operating licence of LaMia, the charter airline whose plane crashed on Monday killing 71 people.

It was LaMia's only operational plane, and had been part-owned by the pilot.

The aircraft carrying Brazil's Chapecoense football team went down near Medellin, Colombia. There were only six survivors.

Colombian authorities say evidence is growing that the plane crashed because it ran out of fuel as it tried to land.

LaMia was only set up last year, and has three aircraft - two of which are being repaired.

The British-made BAE 146 Avro RJ85 aircraft had no fuel when it plunged into a mountainside near Medellin, Colombian aviation chief Alfredo Bocanegra said, corroborating audio of the pilot asking to land because of a fuel shortage and electric failure.

"Having been able to do an inspection of all of the remains and parts of the plane, we can affirm clearly that the aircraft did not have fuel at the moment of impact," Mr Bocanegra said.

'Total electric failure'

Freddy Bonilla, another aviation official, said regulations stipulated that aircraft must have 30 minutes of fuel in reserve to reach an alternative airport in an emergency, but "in this case the plane did not have" it.

"The engines are the electrical source... but without fuel, obviously the electrical source would have been completely lost," he added.

In a leaked tape, the pilot, Miguel Quiroga, can be heard warning of a "total electric failure" and "lack of fuel". Just before the tape ends, he says he is flying at an altitude of 9,000ft (2,745m).

The plane was carrying Chapecoense, who had been due to play a football cup final against Atletico Nacional in Medellin on Wednesday.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Many Chapecoense fans were in tears at their stadium in Chapeco, Brazil

The team flew from Sao Paulo to Santa Cruz on a commercial flight, then switched to the chartered aircraft.

Brazil's O Globo reported that because of a delayed departure, a refuelling stop in Cobija - on the border between Brazil and Bolivia - was abandoned because the airport did not operate at night.

The pilot had the option to refuel in Bogota, but headed straight to Medellin.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Richard Westcott reports from a 'black box' investigation centre in the UK

"The pilot was the one who took the decision," Gustavo Vargas, a representative of Lamia, was quoted as saying in Bolivian newspaper Pagina Siete. "He thought the fuel would last."

Approaching Medellin, the pilot asked for permission to land because of fuel problems, without making a formal distress call.

But another plane from airline VivaColombia had priority because it had already suffered a fuel leak, the co-pilot of another plane in the air at the time said.

The pilot of the crashed plane is heard asking urgently for directions to the airport before the audio recording ends.

Unconfirmed media reports say that a Bolivian official at Santa Cruz airport checked the paperwork for the LaMia plane and pointed out to the company that the amount of fuel they had was not enough.

Officials say the plane's "black boxes", which record flight details, will be sent to the UK to be opened by investigators. A full investigation into the crash is expected to take months.

Image copyright AP

Unanswered questions - by Richard Westcott, BBC's transport correspondent

There are some critical questions investigators need to answer.

If the plane did indeed run out of fuel, why didn't the crew fill up en route, as was reportedly planned?

And why wasn't it carrying the required 30-minute fuel reserve? Or maybe it was, and there was a fuel leak somewhere.

Also, why was the aircraft told to circle while another flight with a problem was given priority to land? Did the crew make it clear to the ground that they had a crisis on their hands?

Looking at the radar track, it appears to circle for around 13 minutes. Yet it was only around three or four minutes flying time from the airport.

Accidents normally come down to a series of problems and decisions that add up to catastrophe. There are often moments, with hindsight, where a tragedy could have been averted.

We still don't have an official explanation yet. So, there may be facts or problems yet to come out that put a totally different complexion on what happened.

On Wednesday night, when the match had been due to take place, tens of thousands of fans gathered at the Medellin stadium - and at Chapecoense's home ground in Chapeco - to pay tearful tributes.

Many wore white and carried candles as a mark of respect. Chapecoense lost 19 players in the crash. Twenty journalists were also killed.

Of the survivors, Chapecoense said two players remained in a critical but stable condition, while the club's goalkeeper had had one leg amputated and might still lose his other foot.

An injured journalist also remained in critical condition, the club said. </s> A look at how fuel may have played a role in the crash of a charter flight approaching Medellin, Colombia, that killed all but six of the 77 people on board:

PRE-FLIGHT: Authorities have not released the flight plan for the jet operated by LaMia, a Bolivia-based charter company, but aviation experts say international regulations require enough extra fuel to fly at least 30 to 45 minutes to divert to another airport in case of emergency. Pilots also calculate the actual consumption of fuel during the flight and rarely get into a position that requires them to use reserves. The BAE 146 Avro RJ85 jet’s maximum range was 2,965 kilometers (1,600 nautical miles). That is just under the distance between Medellin and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the plane took off at almost full capacity.

FLIGHT AND APPROACH: A BAE 146 Avro RJ85 holds about 21,000 pounds of fuel. It burns fuel at a rate of 4,500-5,000 pounds an hour. The flight 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.

CRASH: In the final minutes of the LaMia flight, the pilot of the jet can be heard repeatedly requesting permission to land due to a lack of fuel and a “total electric failure,” according to a leaked recording. The recording, obtained by several Colombian media outlets, seem to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic pleas from the doomed airliner. In addition, there was no explosion upon impact, pointing to a scarcity of fuel.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Fuel shortages and negligence caused a plane crash that killed 71 people in 2016, including most members of Brazilian football team Chapecoense, Colombian authorities have concluded.

The plane crashed on Nov. 28, 2016, on a mountain in Colombia just a few miles from Medellin. On Friday, Colombia’s Civil Aviation Authority presented the findings of a 15-month inquiry.

Officials say crew members ignored a low-fuel warning when the plane was about 40 minutes from its intended destination.

Instead of making an emergency landing at a nearby airport, they headed on towards Medellin and the British Aerospace Avro RJ85 ran out of fuel.

The plane has alarms and lights that turn on that tell the crew to do something when fuel is low,” chief investigator Miguel Camacho told reporters on Friday.

The report said the plane – operated by charter company LaMia, departed Santa Cruz de La Sierra in Bolivia with insufficient fuel for the 2,972km journey.

“The crew insisted on carrying out their original flight plan, even when they realized they had a very limited amount of fuel,” the report said. “But there was no communication with air traffic control.”

The report followed a 15-month inquiry into the incident by the Colombian authorities, which worked in conjunction with counterparts in Bolivia and Brazil.

LaMia’s general manager Gustavo Vargas Gamboa was charged with manslaughter following the incident.

Criminal charges have also been brought against LaMia co-owner Marco Antonio Rocha, whose whereabouts are unknown.

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This post was syndicated from 360Nobs.com. Click here to read the full text on the original website. </s> The 2016 plane crash that nearly wiped out an entire Brazilian football team was caused by a lack of fuel, Colombia’s civil aviation authority said Friday, following an extensive investigation into the disaster.

It blamed the shortage of fuel on mismanagement by LaMia Airlines, a now-defunct Bolivian charter firm that specialized in flying Latin American football clubs.

The probe was launched after the tragic crash in the Colombian mountains in November 2016, which claimed the lives of 71 people, including all but a handful of players from the Chapecoense team, from southern Brazil.

The tragedy cut short the club’s fairy tale rise from obscurity to the finals of the regional Copa Sudamericana tournament, in which they were to face Atletico Nacional of Medellin.

The accident “was caused by the plane’s empty fuel tank as a result of inappropriate risk management by LaMia,” said Miguel Camacho, who heads the authority’s accident investigation branch.

Investigators from Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia had been probing the cause of the crash, with Friday’s report confirming what had been a leading theory after a recording emerged in which the pilot radioed the control tower to report a fuel emergency.

Following a preliminary investigation a month after the crash, the Colombian aviation authority said it believed the airline had disregarded international rules on fuel reserves.

In its report Friday, the aviation authority said it had found sufficient “evidential and technical support” to corroborate that theory.

“The aircraft was carrying 9,073 kilograms of fuel, which was insufficient to fly” between Santa Cruz, Bolivia and its final destination, the international airport in Rionegro outside Medellin.

“It did not meet the minimum fuel standard for an international flight,” he said.

The probe, which also involved investigators from Brazil, Bolivia, Britain and the United States, said the airline was in “a precarious financial situation” and that it was also not the first time it had allowed planes to fly “with critically low supplies of fuel.”

It also suggested that the pilots were aware of the fuel emergency for some time before contacting air traffic controllers in Colombia, who were exonerated of any responsibility for the crash.

Forty minutes before the accident, “there was an indication in the cabin about the low fuel level and from that moment, the plane was already in an emergency,” Camacho said.

However, “the crew did not inform air traffic control about this emergency to request priority” landing, he said, without suggesting why.

As well as lacking fuel, the plane was also overweight by about 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds).

“In light of the factors which contributed to causing this tragic accident, there were latent shortcomings on the part of LaMia relating to a failure to comply with fuel policies, a lack of supervision and operational control,” the civil aviation authority said in a statement.

Shortly after the crash, Bolivia suspended LaMia’s permit to operate, effectively shutting it down. </s> Fuel shortages and negligence caused a plane crash that killed 71 people in 2016, including most members of the Brazilian football team Chapecoense, Colombian authorities have concluded.

The team was on its way to Medellin in Colombia to play a South American cup final.

Friday's report from Colombia's Civil Aviation Authority capped a 17-month inquiry into the November 28 2016 crash on a mountain just a few miles from Medellin.

Officials said crew members ignored a low-fuel warning when the plane was about 40 minutes from its intended destination.

Instead of making an emergency landing at a nearby airport, they headed on towards Medellin and the British Aerospace Avro RJ85 ran out of fuel.

The flight that took the Brazilian football players to Medellin was operated by LaMia, a charter airline registered in Bolivia whose general manager was charged with manslaughter following the accident.

The airline's sole surviving owner, Marco Antonio Rocha, is also wanted for manslaughter, but is currently at large and has refused to return to Bolivia, claiming that he will not receive a fair trial.

Forensic experts had long said that the lack of an explosion at the crash site indicated the plane had run out of fuel.

On Friday, Colombian officials provided further details on the flight's last minutes, saying crew members failed to tell controllers that their plane was low on fuel.

"The plane has alarms and lights that turn on that tell the crew to do something when fuel is low," said Miguel Camacho, the chief investigator for Colombia's Civil Aviation Authority.

"But there was no communication with air traffic control.
• Chapecoense plane crash: Who are the six survivors?

Officials said the plane's crew could have requested an emergency landing at two airports that were located closer than Medellin's airport, but that would have forced the airline to pay landing fees and fines.

"The crew insisted on carrying out their original flight plan, even when they realised they had a very limited amount of fuel," the report said.

Officials said that the crew of the 90-seat passenger jet attempted to make a four-hour flight from Santa Cruz in Bolivia to Medellin with 9,300 kilograms of fuel.

Regulations stipulate that the plane would have needed to carry 11,600 kilograms of fuel to fly that distance. </s> An investigation into the plane crash in Colombia that killed all but six of the 77 people on board in 2016 has confirmed that a lack of fuel was responsible.

Forty minutes before the impact, the low fuel warning light came on "in the cabin (...), from then on, the aircraft was already in an emergency", the head of the Colombian investigation, Colonel Miguel Camacho, stated.

On board were the Brazilians football team Chapecoense and twenty journalists all headed for the Copa Sudamericana.

The small Brazilian club Chapecoense had defied all odds by qualifying for the final of the tournament.

The crew flying the LaMia airlines plane ignored the flight plan which included a refuelling stop in Bolivia.

It crashed into a hillside near Medellin on November 26th 2016. </s> Fuel shortages and negligence caused a plane crash that killed 71 people in 2016, including most members of the Brazilian football team Chapecoense, Colombian authorities have concluded.

The team was on its way to Medellin in Colombia to play a South American cup final.

Friday’s report from Colombia’s Civil Aviation Authority capped a 17-month inquiry into the November 28 2016 crash on a mountain just a few miles from Medellin.

Officials said crew members ignored a low-fuel warning when the plane was about 40 minutes from its intended destination.

Instead of making an emergency landing at a nearby airport, they headed on towards Medellin and the British Aerospace Avro RJ85 ran out of fuel.

The flight that took the Brazilian football players to Medellin was operated by LaMia, a charter airline registered in Bolivia whose general manager was charged with manslaughter following the accident. </s> MEDELLIN, Colombia — The pilot of the chartered plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team told air traffic controllers he had run out of fuel and pleaded for permission to land before crashing into the Andes, according to a leaked recording of the final minutes of the 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. "Complete electrical failure, without fuel," he said in the tense final seconds before the plane set off on a four-minute death spiral that ended with it slamming into a mountainside Monday night.

A female controller could be heard giving instructions as the aircraft lost speed and altitude about 8 miles from Medellin's international airport. Just before going silent the pilot said he was flying at an altitude of 9,000 feet and made a final plea for a landing code: "Vectors, senorita. Landing vectors."

The recording, obtained Wednesday by Colombian media, appeared to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the 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 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.

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 U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was taking part in the investigation because the plane's engines were made by an American manufacturer.

As the probe continued, mourning soccer fans in Medellin and the southern Brazilian town of Chapeco, where the team is from, were converging on the two cities' soccer stadiums for simultaneous candlelight vigils. The six survivors were recovering in hospitals, with three in critical but stable condition, while forensic specialists worked to identify the victims so they could be transferred to a waiting cargo plane sent by the Brazilian air force to repatriate the bodies.

Alfredo Bocanegra, head of Colombia's aviation agency, said that while evidence initially pointed to an electrical problem, the possibility the crash was caused by lack of fuel has not been ruled out. Planes need to have enough extra fuel on board to fly at least 30 to 45 minutes to another airport in the case of an emergency, and rarely fly in a straight line because of turbulence or other reasons.

Before being taken offline, the website of LaMia, the Bolivian-based charter company, said the BAE 146 Avro RJ85 jetliner's maximum range was 1,600 nautical miles — just under the distance between Medellin and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the flight originated carrying close to its full passenger capacity.

"If this is confirmed by the investigators it would be a very painful because it stems from negligence," Bocanegra told Caracol Radio on Wednesday when asked whether the plane should not have attempted such a long haul.
The BBC reports that leaked audio recordings of air traffic tower tapes indicate that the LaMia Airlines flight was running out of fuel near the Colombian city of Medellin.