Doctors treated survivors of an air crash in Colombia that killed 71 people and wiped out Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team en route to a cup final in Colombia as an investigation got underway on Wednesday.

Only six people - three players, a journalist and two crew members - survived the crash on Monday night when Chapecoense’s charter plane, a BAe 146 made by BAE Systems Plc, hit a mountain en route to their Copa Sudamericana showdown in Medellin.

All were being treated at local hospitals.

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.

Investigators from Brazil flew to join Colombian counterparts checking two black boxes from the crash site on a muddy hillside in wooded highlands near the town of La Union.

Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper cited crews from planes approaching Medellin airport on Monday night as saying the pilot of Chapecoense’s flight shouted over the radio that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing.

Landing priority was given to a plane from airline VivaColombia, which had already reported instrument problems, the paper said.

Shortly afterward the pilot of the Chapecoense plane told the control tower he was experiencing electrical difficulties before the radio went silent, the paper quoted the sources as saying.

Another survivor, Bolivian flight technician Erwin Tumiri, said he survived because he strictly followed safety instructions.

“Many passengers got up from their seats and started yelling. I put the bag between my legs and went into the fetal position as recommended,” he told Colombia’s Radio Caracol.

Bolivian stewardess 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.

Doctors said that Suarez and Tumiri were shaken and bruised but not in critical condition, while journalist Rafael Valmorbida was in intensive care for multiple rib fractures that partly collapsed a lung.

Investigators returned to the wreckage on Wednesday as soldiers guarded the hillside crash site overnight.

Bolivia, where the charter company LAMIA was based, and the United Kingdom also sent experts to help the probe. LAMIA operated the plane that crashed.

Locals are accustomed to planes flying overhead at all hours, but many were disturbed by the massive crash.

“It came over my house, but there was no noise, the engine must have gone,” said Nancy Munoz, 35, who grows strawberries in the area.

By nightfall on Tuesday, rescuers had recovered most of the bodies which were to be repatriated to Brazil and Bolivia, the countries from where the nine-person crew came.

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, where schools canceled classes and businesses shut, black and green ribbons were draped on fences, balconies and restaurant tables.

“It’s a miracle,” Flávio 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. Like family,” said Chapecoense fan Caua Regis.

Almost all of the 67 bodies recovered from the crash have been identified, according to a member of the Chapecoense board. He said medical experts from Brazil were expected to conclude their work by Wednesday night.

The club is planning an open wake at their stadium by Saturday, the city’s planning secretary Nemesio da Silva told journalists.

Chapecoense’s opponents, Atletico Nacional of Medellin, asked that the tournament cup be awarded to the Brazilians in honor of the dead.</s>LA UNION, Colombia — 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.”</s>Families are preparing to receive the bodies of the victims of this week's air tragedy in Colombia as experts develop a clearer picture of how things went so terribly wrong with a charter flight that slammed into a mountainside.

Many of the 71 killed were players and coaches from a small-town Brazilian soccer team that was headed to the finals of one of South America's most prestigious tournaments after a fairy-tale season that had captivated their soccer-crazed nation.

On Thursday, white sheets printed with the logo of the Chapocoense soccer club lay over row upon row of caskets at a Medellin funeral home. Most of the remains had been identified and were expected to be flown home Friday.

Bolivian aviation officials announced they were indefinitely suspending the charter company that operated the flight after a recording of conversations between a pilot of the doomed flight and air traffic controllers, as well as the account of a surviving flight attendant, indicated the plane ran out of fuel. The jet, which took off from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was flying at its maximum range when it crashed late Monday, killing all but six of the 77 people on board.

In Brazil, grieving relatives of the dead spoke out in disbelief.

Osmar Machado, whose son, Filipe, a defender on the Chapecoense team, died on his father's 66th birthday, questioned why the plane was transporting the team.

"Profit brings greed," Machado said, speaking in the team's hometown of Chapeco. "This plane ended (the lives of) 71 people."

Williams Brasiliano, uncle of midfielder Arthur Maia, said the crash could have been avoided if the team had chosen a commercial flight and not a charter.

"Look how complicated that flight was going to be even if it had arrived," Brasiliano said tearfully of the team's itinerary, which included a flight from Sao Paulo to Bolivia on a commercial airliner before the ill-fated flight to Medellin.

"I doubt that a bigger club would have done the same," he added.

Chapecoense spokesman Andrei Copetti defended the decision, saying more than 30 teams had used the Bolivia-based company, LaMia airlines, including the national teams of Argentina and Bolivia. He added that the team itself had flown on its flights before.

"They had a good service then. It was the airline that got in touch with us because they have experience in doing these long flights in South America," he said.

A recording of the flight's final minutes showed the pilot repeatedly requested permission to land because of "fuel problems," although he never made a formal distress call. He was told another plane with mechanical problems had priority for the airport's single runway and was instructed to wait seven minutes.

As the jetliner circled, the pilot grew more desperate. "Complete electrical failure, without fuel," he said. By then the controller had gauged the seriousness of the situation and told the other plane to abandon its approach to make way for the charter jet. It was too late.

The lack of an explosion upon impact also pointed to a rare case of fuel burnout as a cause of the crash of the British Aerospace 146 Avro RJ85.

The air traffic controller said in an email sent to her colleagues and released to local media Thursday that she had done everything humanly and technically possible to save the plane.

The Bolivian Civil Aviation Authority announced it had indefinitely halted all flights operated by LaMia and also was suspending some aviation officials during the investigation.

British aviation authorities said the flight data and cockpit voice recorders recovered from the accident site were being taken to Britain for study.</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.</s>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>MEDELLIN, Colombia — The Bolivian Civil Aviation Authority is indefinitely suspending permission for LaMia airline to operate following the deadly crash of one its charter planes in Colombia.

Officials made the announcement Thursday, and not provide additional details. The LaMia charter flight crashed while approaching Medellin, Colombia, killing all but six of the 77 people on board.

The airline was founded in Venezuela in 2009 but operates in Bolivia.</s>ABOVE PHOTO: Rescue workers carry a body away from he wreckage of a chartered airplane that crashed in La Union, a mountainous area outside Medellin, Colombia, Tuesday , Nov. 29, 2016. The plane was carrying the Brazilian first division soccer club Chapecoense team that was on it’s way for a Copa Sudamericana final match against Colombia’s Atletico Nacional. (AP Photo/Luis Benavides)

LA UNION, Colombia — Colombian authorities on Wednesday were searching for answers to why a charter plane crashed shortly before it was to land in Medillin, killing all but six of the 77 people on board, including nearly an entire Brazilian soccer team in the midst of a storybook season.

Authorities were also working to finish identifying the bodies of the victims before repatriating them to Brazil. Forensic experts have said that that process is going quickly because the crash did not include a fire.

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.

Sadness and pain resonated across the region over the loss of most of the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil, which had fought its way into the championship of one of South America’s most prestigious tournaments just two years after working its way into Brazil’s top league for the first time in decades.

Pope Francis said a prayer for the victims, and thousands Tuesday attended vigils in Bogota, Colombia, and Chapeco, Brazil, home of the fallen team.

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 in Spain 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.

“The chances of surviving an airplane crash are practically zero. That my son is one of the survivors is a miracle of God,” Paulo Follman told The Associated Press.

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.</s>Feliciano Encina, father of Gustavo Encina, Paraguayan pilot of the crashed plane that carried the Brazilian team Chapecoense, cries next to the coffin of his son at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Luque, Paraguay December 2, 2016. REUTERS/Jorge Adorno

MEDELLIN, Colombia (Reuters) - Dozens of coffins carrying those killed when a plane flying Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team crashed into a Colombian mountain were loaded onto Brazilian air force planes for their final journey home on Friday.

The disaster on Monday killed 71 people and shocked soccer fans the world over. The LAMIA Bolivia BAe146 airliner apparently ran out of fuel, lost electrical power and was preparing for an emergency landing when it crashed.

Only six people survived, including three members of the soccer squad en route to the Copa Sudamericana final, the biggest game in its history.

The tragedy plunged Latin America's largest nation, Brazil, into mourning as it reels from a deep recession and political crisis.

A convoy carrying the 64 dead Brazilians made its way from a funeral home in the Colombian city of Medellin to Rionegro airport, where coffins were solemnly accompanied into the bellies of the planes by a military honor guard.

The remains are scheduled to arrive early on Saturday morning for funeral services in Chapeco, the club's small farming hometown in southern Brazil.

Temporary structures in the team's stadium will shelter the coffins of players, staff and journalists for an open-air wake.

Some 100,000 fans, about half the city's population, are likely to attend, as is Gianni Infantino, president of world soccer governing body FIFA. Brazilian President Michel Temer will attend a ceremony at the Chapeco airport after the coffins arrive, but he will not be at the wake in the stadium, his office said.

The pilot's father-in-law, Roger Pinto Molina, apologized to the Brazilian people, after the publication of documents from Bolivian aviation authorities showing the airline ignored advice to use an alternative flight plan.

"We want to say to millions of Brazilians, especially the families, sons, parents and brothers in Chapeco that we are very sorry," Molina, a former Bolivian senator living in exile in Brazil, told GloboNews.

The mood in Chapeco was subdued on Friday as some schools resumed classes, but city hall remained officially in mourning. Dozens of fans continued a vigil at the Chapecoense stadium as an impromptu shrine continued to swell with fresh flowers and handmade posters.

The bodies and ashes of five Bolivian victims of the crash left Colombia on a Hercules aircraft on Friday. Those of a Venezuelan victim were sent home on a commercial flight and the remains of a Paraguayan victim left Colombia late on Thursday.

Bolivia will take "drastic measures" to determine what caused the crash, President Evo Morales told a news conference. The country has suspended LAMIA's operating license and replaced the national aviation authority's management.

Two black boxes from the crash site on a muddy hillside in wooded highlands near the town of La Union will be sent for examination by experts in Britain, where the jet was manufactured.

The Colombian aviation authority's initial investigation confirmed pilot Miguel Quiroga's final words to the control tower at Medellin's airport on a crackly recording obtained by local media.

He can be heard telling the control tower the plane was "in total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel."

Quiroga requested urgent permission to land before the audio went silent. Air traffic control had asked him to wait while another flight made an emergency landing.

The plane circled for about 16 minutes from its first communication with the tower until the crash, officials said. International flight regulations require aircraft to carry enough reserve fuel to fly for 30 minutes after reaching their destination.

Local media in Brazil, citing an internal document, reported an official at Bolivia's aviation agency raised concerns about LAMIA's flight plan.

The official urged the airline to come up with an alternative route because the journey of 4 hours and 22 minutes was the same length as the plane's maximum flight range. The reports said the official, whom Reuters could not reach for comment, did not have the power to stop the flight.

A Colombian civil aviation document seen by Reuters confirmed the flight time was set to be 4 hours and 22 minutes.

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, he said, the pilot decides whether to refuel.

The father of Chapecoense defender Filipe Machado was among the relatives criticizing the pilot.

"He should have known that there was not enough fuel. So why did that idiot not stop to refuel?" Osmar Machado told GloboNews.</s>The disaster on Monday night killed 71 people and shocked soccer fans the world over. The LAMIA Bolivia BAe146 airliner apparently ran out of fuel, lost electrical power and was preparing for an emergency landing when it crashed.

Only six people survived, including three members of the soccer squad en route to the Copa Sudamericana final, the biggest game in its history. Video footage of players seated before takeoff showed them laughing and pulling faces at the camera.

The tragedy plunged Latin America's largest nation, Brazil, into mourning as it reels from a deep recession and political crisis.

The bodies and ashes of five Bolivians left on a Hercules aircraft earlier on Friday, and those of a Venezuelan will be on a commercial flight. The remains of a Paraguayan victim left Colombia late on Thursday.

A convoy carrying the 64 dead Brazilians will leave the funeral home in Medellin beginning around noon on Friday, the Brazilian ambassador to Colombia told Reuters. They will be flown back to Brazil from Rionegro airport in the late afternoon on air force planes.

The coffins are scheduled to arrive early on Saturday morning for funeral services in Chapeco, the club's small farming hometown in southern Brazil.

Temporary structures in the team's stadium will shelter the coffins of players, staff and journalists for an open-air wake.

Some 100,000 fans, about half the city's population, are likely to attend, as is Gianni Infantino, president of world soccer governing body FIFA. Brazilian President Michel Temer was due to fly to Chapeco on Saturday morning.

The mood in Chapeco was subdued on Friday as some schools resumed classes, but city hall remained officially in mourning. Dozens of fans continued a vigil at the Chapecoense stadium as an impromptu shrine continued to swell with fresh flowers and handmade posters.

Roberto Di Marchi came to Colombia to escort the body of his cousin Nilson Folle Junior, 29, a director of Chapecoense, back home.

"He always traveled with the team, to every game," Di Marchi said at the funeral home. "He loved the Chapecoense."

Folle's father was one of the club's founders, Di Marchi added.

Among surviving players, goalkeeper Jackson Follmann's right leg was amputated, while defender Alan Ruschel had spinal surgery. Fellow defender Helio Neto was in intensive care with severe trauma to his skull, thorax and lungs.

Neto's father told Brazilian media that doctors said his son would be able to play soccer again.

Two members 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. Tumiri may soon be released, local media reported.

Bolivia will take "drastic measures" to determine what caused the crash, President Evo Morales told a news conference on Friday. Earlier this week, the country suspended LAMIA's operating license and replaced the national aviation authority's management.

Two black boxes from the crash site on a muddy hillside in wooded highlands near the town of La Union will be sent this week for examination by experts in Britain, where the jet was manufactured, officials said.

The Colombian aviation authority's initial investigation confirmed Bolivian pilot Miguel Quiroga's final words to the control tower at Medellin's airport on a crackly recording obtained by local media.

He can be heard telling the control tower the plane was "in total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel."

Quiroga requested urgent permission to land before the audio went silent. Air traffic control had asked him to wait while another flight made an emergency landing.

The plane circled for about 16 minutes from its first communication with the tower until the crash, officials said. International flight regulations require aircraft to carry enough reserve fuel to fly for 30 minutes after reaching their destination.

Local media in Brazil, citing an internal document, reported an official at Bolivia's aviation agency raised concerns about LAMIA's flight plan.

The official urged the airline to come up with an alternative route because the journey of 4 hours and 22 minutes was the same length as the plane's maximum flight range. The reports said the official, whom Reuters could not reach for comment, did not have the power to stop the flight.

A Colombian civil aviation document seen by Reuters confirmed the flight time was set to be 4 hours and 22 minutes.

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, he said, the pilot decides whether to refuel.
Bolivia's aviation authority suspends the operating license of LaMia. Investigation into the crash in Colombia, which killed 71 people, continues.