Air crash investigators in Colombia sought Wednesday to piece together the terrifying final moments aboard a charter jet carrying a Brazilian soccer team for the biggest match in its history, including a report that the pilot said the plane had run out of fuel shortly after declaring an electrical malfunction.
The probe into Monday’s crash pressed ahead on multiple fronts — including accounts from some of the six survivors — even as soccer clubs and leaders around the world joined Brazil to mourn a tragedy that claimed the lives of 71 people, including players, coaches and journalists.
Among the questions likely to occupy the early stages of the probe: whether a possible electrical malfunction set in motion the events that brought down the plane, a variant of the British Aerospace 146, with the Chapecoense squad aboard.
Also under scrutiny were the crucial minutes between the first emergency call to air traffic controllers in Medellin declaring a “total electric failure” and a second SOS from the cockpit — based on a leaked recording cited by the Associated Press — that the plane’s fuel tanks had run dry.
The pilot repeatedly asked for permission to land the plane before it slammed into a hillside, according to the recording leaked to several Colombian media outlets and reported by the AP. The Washington Post could not immediately verify the authenticity of the report.
Civil aviation officials initially said 81 passengers and crew were aboard, but Colombian officials later revised the number to 77. The reason for the change was not immediately clear.
Theories raised by analysts suggested that the pilot may have intentionally dumped fuel in hopes of reducing risks of a fireball in the crash or that the aircraft’s tank had run dry as it moved into the upper limits of its range.
A surviving crew member, flight attendant Ximena Su?rez, told Colombia officials that the inside of the plane went dark before its deadly plunge, media reports said.
A statement by Jos? Mar?a C?rdova International Airport in Medellin said the pilot reported an electrical fault moments before the crash. But investigators hope that data recovered from flight recorders will shed more details on the cascade of events about 50 miles from Medellin’s airport.
Data from Flightradar24 showed the aircraft flying in a circular pattern before it crashed.
