FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, file photo, players of Brazil's Chapecoense celebrate at the end of a Copa Sudamericana semifinal soccer match against Argentina's San Lorenzo in Chapeco, Brazil.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, file photo, players of Brazil's Chapecoense celebrate at the end of a Copa Sudamericana semifinal soccer match against Argentina's San Lorenzo in Chapeco, Brazil. A chartered aircraft with 81 people on board, including the Brazilian first division Chapecoense... (Associated Press) 
 
 MEDELLIN, Colombia (AP) — A chartered plane with a Brazilian first division soccer team crashed near Medellin while on its way to the finals of a regional tournament, killing 76 people, Colombian officials said Tuesday. Five people survived. 
 
 The British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane, operated by a charter airline named LaMia, declared an emergency at 10 p.m. Monday (0300 GMT) because of an electrical failure, aviation authorities said. 
 
 The aircraft, which had departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was transporting the Chapecoense soccer team to Medellin's Jose Maria Cordova airport. 
 
 The team, from southern Brazil and which had started its journey in Sao Paulo, was scheduled to play Wednesday in the first of a two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin. 
 
 It wasn't immediately clear if the team switched planes in Bolivia or just made a stopover with the same plane. 
 
 "What was supposed to be a celebration has turned into a tragedy," Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez said from the search and rescue command center. 
 
 The club said in a brief statement on its Facebook page that "may God accompany our athletes, officials, journalists and other guests traveling with our delegation." 
 
 Brazil as well as South America's soccer federation extended its condolences to the entire Chapecoense community and said its president, Luis Dominguez, was on his way to Medellin. All soccer activities were suspended until further notice, the organization said in a statement. 
 
 Elkin Ospina, mayor of La Ceja, near where the crash took place, said rescuers working through the night had been heartened after pulling three passengers alive from the wreckage. 
 
 Authorities and rescuers were immediately activated but an air force helicopter had to turn back because of low visibility. Heavy rainfall complicated the nighttime search, and authorities urged journalists to stay off the roads so ambulances and other rescuers could reach the site. 
 
 Images broadcast on local television showed three male passengers arriving to a local hospital in ambulances on stretchers and covered in blankets connected to an IV. All were apparently alive and one of them was reportedly a Chapecoense defender named Alan Ruschel. 
 
 The plane was carrying 72 passengers and nine crew members, aviation authorities said in a statement. Local radio said the same aircraft transported Argentina's national squad for a match earlier this month in Brazil, and previously had transported Venezuela's national team. 
 
 British Aerospace, which is now known as BAE Systems, says that the first 146-model plane took off in 1981 and that just under 400 — including the successor Avro RJ — were built in total in the U.K. through 2003. It says around 220 of are still in service in a variety of roles, including aerial firefighting and overnight freight services. 
 
 A video published on the team's Facebook page showed the team readying for the flight earlier Monday in Sao Paulo's Guarulhos international airport. 
 
 The team, from the small city of Chapeco, was in the middle of a fairy tale season. It joined Brazil's first division in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s and made it last week to the Copa Sudamericana finals — the equivalent of the UEFA Europa League tournament — after defeating two of Argentina's fiercest squads, San Lorenzo and Independiente, as well as Colombia's Junior. 
 
 The team is so modest that its 22,000-seat arena was ruled by tournament organizers too small to host the final match, which was instead moved to a stadium 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the north in the city of Curitiba. 
 
 "Chapecoense was the biggest source of happiness in the town," the club's vice-president, Ivan Tozzo, told Brazil's SporTV. "Many in the town are crying." 
 
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 Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota. Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese contributed to this report from Rio de Janeiro. ||||| Rescue workers stand at the wreckage site of a chartered airplane that crashed in a mountainous area outside Medellin, Colombia, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016. The plane was carrying the Brazilian first division... (Associated Press) 
 
 LA UNION, Colombia (AP) — Colombia's worst air crash in two decades snuffed out a storybook run by a Brazilian soccer team, and authorities are digging in trying to figure out why a chartered jetliner crashed in the Andes, killing all but six of the 77 people aboard. 
 
 The country's aviation agency said Tuesday that the British Aerospace 146's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder had been found among the wreckage strewn over a mountainside and were already being studied by experts. 
 
 Initially, Colombian officials said the short-haul jet suffered an electrical failure, but there was also heavy rain when the crew declared an emergency and the plane disappeared from radar just before 10 p.m. Monday. 
 
 Authorities also said they were not ruling out the possibility the aircraft ran out of fuel minutes before it was to land at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin, a report given to rescuers by a surviving flight attendant. Officials said they hoped to interview her Wednesday. 
 
 Emotional pain resonated across the region over the loss of much of the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil, which just two years after working its way into Brazil's top league for the first time in decades had fought its way into the championship of one of South America's most prestigious tournaments. 
 
 The aircraft, which departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was carrying the team to Wednesday's first game in the two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin. Twenty-one Brazilian journalists were traveling with the team. 
 
 South America's soccer federation canceled all scheduled matches in a show of solidarity, while the Real Madrid and Barcelona clubs interrupted their training sessions for a minute of silence. Brazil's top teams offered to lend players to the small club for next season as it rebuilds, saying: "It is the minimum gesture of solidarity that is within our reach." 
 
 In a moving gesture, Atletico Nacional asked that the championship title be given to Chapecoense, whose upstart run in the tournament electrified soccer-crazed Brazil. 
 
 Three players were among the survivors. Alan Ruschel was reported in the most serious condition, facing surgery for a spinal fracture. Teammates Helio Zampier and Jakson Follmann also suffered multiple trauma injuries, and doctors had to amputate Follmann's right leg. 
 
 A journalist also underwent surgery and two Bolivian crew members were in stable condition, hospital officials said. 
 
 The aircraft is owned by LaMia, a charter company that started in Venezuela but later relocated to Bolivia, where it was certified to operate last January. Despite apparently limited experience, the airline has a close relationship with several premier South American soccer squads. 
 
 Earlier this month, the plane involved in the crash transported Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and Argentina's national team from Brazil following a World Cup qualifying match. The airliner also appeared to have transported the national squads of Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela in the last three months, according to a log of recent activity provided by Flightradar24.com. 
 
 Before being taken offline, LaMia's website said it operated three 146 Avro short-haul jets made by British Aerospace, with a maximum range of around 2,965 kilometers (1,600 nautical miles) — about the distance between Santa Cruz and Medellin. 
 
 Hans Weber, a longtime adviser to U.S. aviation authorities, said the aircraft's range deserves careful investigation. He noted that air distance between cities is usually measured by the shortest route but planes rarely fly in a straight line, with pilots steering around turbulence or changing course for other reasons. 
 
 Given the model of the plane and the fact that it was flying close to capacity, "I would be concerned that the pilots may have been cutting it too close," Weber said. 
 
 A spokesman for Bolivia's civil aviation agency, Cesar Torrico, said the plane was inspected before departing for Colombia and no problems were reported. 
 
 Gustavo Vargas, a retired Bolivian air force general who is president of the airline, said: "We can't rule out anything. The investigation is ongoing and we're going to await the results." 
 
 Moments before the plane took off, the team's coaching staff gave an interview to a Bolivian television station in which they praised the airline, saying it brought them good fortune when it flew them to Colombia last month for the championship's quarterfinals, which they won. 
 
 "Now we're going to do this new trip and we hope they bring us good luck like they did the first time," athletic director Mauro Stumpf told Gigavision TV. 
 
 The team, from the small Brazilian city of Chapeco, was having a breakout season. It advanced to the Copa Sudamericana finals after defeating some of the region's top teams, including Argentina's San Lorenzo and Independiente. 
 
 The Chapecoense club is so modest that tournament organizers ruled its 22,000-seat stadium was too small to host the concluding match of the two-game final and moved it to a stadium 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the city of Curitiba. Some fans in soccer-mad Brazil were so enchanted with its magical run that they started a campaign online to move the final match to Rio de Janeiro's iconic Maracana stadium, where the 2014 World Cup final was played. 
 
 "This morning I said goodbye to them and they told me they were going after the dream, turning that dream into reality," Chapecoense board member Plinio De Nes told Brazil's TV Globo. "The dream was over early this morning." 
 
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 Associated Press writer Fernando Vergara reported this story in La Union, Colombia, and AP writer Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota. ||||| LA UNION, Colombia/CHAPECO, Brazil (Reuters) - The pilot of a LAMIA Airlines plane that crashed in Colombia, virtually wiping out a Brazilian soccer team, had radioed that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing, according to the co-pilot of another plane in the area. 
 
 The crash on Monday night killed 71 people. Six survived, including just three members of the Chapecoense soccer squad en route to the biggest game in their history, the Copa Sudamericana final. 
 
 Avianca co-pilot Juan Sebastian Upegui said in a chat message with friends that the LAMIA pilot told the control tower at the airport in Medellin that he was in trouble. 
 
 Priority had already been given to a plane from airline VivaColombia, which had also reported problems, Upegui said. Reuters confirmed the audio message, which local media played on Wednesday, was from Upegui. 
 
 After reporting being low on fuel, the LAMIA pilot then said he was experiencing electrical difficulties before the radio went silent. 
 
 “Mayday mayday ... Help us get to the runway ... Help, help,” Upegui described the pilot as saying. “Then it ended ... We all started to cry.” 
 
 The BAe 146, made by BAE Systems Plc, slammed into a mountainside. Besides the three players, a journalist and two crew members survived. 
 
 One survivor, Bolivian flight technician Erwin Tumiri, said he only saved himself by strict adherence to security procedure, while others panicked. 
 
 “Many passengers got up from their seats and started yelling,” he told Colombia’s Radio Caracol. “I put the bag between my legs and went into the fetal position as recommended.” 
 
 Bolivian flight attendant Ximena Suarez, another survivor, said the lights went out less than a minute before the plane slammed into the mountain, according to Colombian officials in Medellin. 
 
 Of the players, goalkeeper Jackson Follmann was recovering from the amputation of his right leg, doctors said. 
 
 Another player, defender Helio Neto, remained in intensive care with severe trauma to his skull, thorax and lungs. 
 
 Fellow defender Alan Ruschel had spine surgery. 
 
 Suarez and Tumiri were shaken and bruised but not in critical condition, medical staff said, while journalist Rafael Valmorbida was in intensive care for multiple rib fractures that partly collapsed a lung. 
 
 Investigators from Brazil have joined Colombian counterparts to check two black boxes from the crash site on a muddy hillside in wooded highlands near the town of La Union. 
 
 Bolivia, where LAMIA is based, and the United Kingdom also sent experts to help the probe. 
 
 HOMAGES PLANNED 
 
 The plane “came over my house, but there was no noise,” said Nancy Munoz, 35, who grows strawberries in the area. “The engine must have gone.” 
 
 Wreckage from a plane that crashed into Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense, is seen near Medellin, Colombia, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Fredy Builes 
 
 By Wednesday morning, rescuers had recovered all of the bodies, which were to be sent to Brazil and Bolivia. All of the crew members were Bolivian. 
 
 Forty-five of the bodies have been identified, Colombian officials said. 
 
 Soccer-mad Brazil declared three days of mourning. 
 
 It was a bitter twist to a fairy-tale story for Chapecoense. Since 2009, the team rose from Brazil’s fourth to top division and was about to play the biggest match in its history in the first leg of the regional cup final in Medellin. 
 
 Global soccer greats from Lionel Messi to Pele sent condolences. 
 
 In the small city of Chapecó in remote southern Brazil, black and green ribbons were draped on fences, balconies and restaurant tables. Schools canceled classes, and businesses closed. 
 
 “It’s a miracle,” Flavio Ruschel, the father of Alan Ruschel, told Globo News as he prepared to fly to Colombia. “I don’t think I’ll be able to speak, just hug him and cry a lot.” 
 
 Black banners hung from a cathedral downtown and wrapped around a 14-meter statue of one of the town’s founding explorers. 
 
 Outside the team’s Conda stadium, a group of hardcore fans put up a tent and promised to keep vigil until the bodies of their idols returned to the city. 
 
 “We were there for them in victory, and we’re here for them in tragedy, rain or shine,” said fan Caua Regis. “Like family.” 
 
 Slideshow (10 Images) 
 
 The club is planning an open wake at their stadium, a city official said. 
 
 A homage was also planned for later on Wednesday at the stadium in Medellin of Atletico Nacional, which had been due to play Chapecoense in the regional final in the evening. 
 
 The Colombian team wants the trophy to be given to Chapecoense in honor of the dead. 
 
 “As far as we are concerned,” the team said, “Chapecoense will forever be the champions of the Copa Sudamericana Cup 2016.”
– A chartered plane with a Brazilian first division soccer team on board crashed in a mountainous area near Medellin while on its way to the finals of a regional tournament, killing 76 people, Colombian officials say. Five people survived, including three players, reports Reuters. Aviation authorities say the British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane, operated by a charter airline named LaMia, declared an emergency at 10pm because of an electrical failure, the AP reports. The aircraft, which had departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was transporting the Chapecoense soccer team to Medellin's Jose Maria Cordova International Airport. The team started the journey in Sao Paulo. A Reuters photographer described the tail section as having been severed from the plane and totally destroyed. The team, from the small city of Chapeco, was in the middle of a fairy-tale season. It joined Brazil's first division in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s and made it last week to the Copa Sudamericana finals after defeating two of Argentina's fiercest squads, San Lorenzo and Independiente, as well as Colombia's Junior. "What was supposed to be a celebration has turned into a tragedy," Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez said from the search-and-rescue command center. "May God accompany our athletes, officials, journalists, and other guests traveling with our delegation," the club said in a brief statement on its Facebook page. The Guardian reports Brazilian President Michel Temer has declared three days of mourning.