MEDELLIN, Colombia (Reuters) — Brazil’s chancellor, Jose Serra, said authorities should withhold any premature conclusion on what caused the plane crash in Colombia which virtually wiped out a Brazilian soccer team among 71 victims on Monday night.
Serra spoke alongside his Colombian counterpart, Maria Angela Holguin, on Wednesday (November 30) on arriving in the western Colombian city of Medellin near to where the crash took place.
“With respect to subjective analyses of the accident, we are going to wait for the investigations. There are many hypotheses, but we are not going to put any one hypothesis forward. We are going to wait for concrete investigations to bring us as close as possible to an explication of what happened, because explaining what happened is very important so that it does not happen again in the future. It does not seem to me to be correct, as a Brazilian authority, or even for a Colombian authority, to anticipate these explanations, without greater certainty,” said Serra.
The pilot of the plane had radioed he was running out of fuel and in an emergency, according to a recording of his final communications. That matched the account from the co-pilot of an Avianca plane flying close by at the time who said he overheard the LAMIA plane reporting it was out of fuel and had to land.
Alfredo Bocanegra, head of the civil aviation authority, said the recordings could be used as part of the investigation, and that the Avianca pilot could be called as a witness.
Forty-five of the bodies have been identified, Colombian officials said. Since there was no fire on board, bodies are being identified by fingerprints, Julio Bitelli, Brazil’s ambassador to Colombia, told Reuters.
Speaking alongside Serra, Holguin expressed her condolences to the Brazilian city most affected by the tragedy.
“We hope that the Brazilian authorities can take their loved ones to Brazil and to the city of Chapeco swiftly. I would like to express to the mayor of the city here, all my condolences on behalf of the Colombian government,” said Holguin.
As the conference took place, fans poured into the Atletico Nacional stadium in Medellin, where Chapecoense was set to play in the Copa Sudamericana final, but will instead be honoured in a vigil beginning 6:45 p.m. (2345 GMT).