Plane Carrying Brazilian Football Team Had Crashed Because It Was Running Out Of Fuel
In a leaked recording, the pilot could be heard requesting permission to land due to lack of fuel.
By John Lim — 01 Dec 2016, 11:42 AM
A leaked recording has revealed that the LAMIA Airlines plane that crashed in Colombia on 28 November might have gone down due to a "total electric failure" after the plane ran out of fuel
The plane crashed in Columbia on Monday night, killing 71 people while six passengers survived.
The plane was also carrying members of the Brazilian football team Chapecoense, who were en route to the biggest game in their history, the Copa Sudamericana final. Only three survived from the squad.
The pilot of the British-built jet could be heard desperately requesting permission to land due to a "total electric failure" and lack of fuel
The recordings, obtained by several Colombian media outlets, seemed to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic pleas from the doomed airliner.
The Metro has stated that Miguel Alejandro Quiroga Murakami was the pilot who was flying the LAMIA jet.
"Mayday mayday... Help us get to the runway... Help, help."
The conversation he had with air traffic controllers was heard by fellow pilot Juan Sebastian Upegui who described the conversation to Reuters.
"Mayday mayday... Help us get to the runway... Help, help," Upegui described the pilot as saying. "Then it ended... We all started to cry."
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
"It is also possible the pilot dumped fuel, or a lack of fuel was caused by a leak or some other, unexplained reason," said Alfredo Bocanegra, head of Colombia's aviation agency.