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. 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. 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." The only players to survive were goalkeeper Jakson Follmann, defender Helio Zampier, commonly known as Neto, and defender-midfielder Alan Ruschel.  The trip to Medellin, Colombia, was supposed to be a joyous one for the members Chapecoense, a soccer club from the small city of Chapeco, Brazil, and they were in the middle of a fairy tale season. Victories over San Lorenzo and Independente — two of Argentina's fiercest squads — as well as the Colombian club Junior took the team to the Copa Sudamericana finals, the equivalent of the UEFA Europa League tournament. In an early morning tweet on Tuesday, the team shared a video of the players celebrating a recent victory with a simple caption: “May this be the last image of our warriors. ___ 
 
 Associated Press sports writer Mauricio Savarese reported this story in Chapeco, Brazil, and AP sports writer Stephen Wade reported from Rio de Janeiro.
– 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 now reported to have been aboard; 20 journalists were among the dead. The latest: The AP reports the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are already being examined in an attempt to get at the cause of the crash, which was originally attributed to an electrical failure. But a flight attendant who survived reported the plane ran out of fuel just before it was to land at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin. The British Aerospace 146 Avro short-haul jet had a maximum range of around 1,600 nautical miles—about the distance between Santa Cruz, where the plane departed from, and Medellin. An aviation expert tells the AP 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, for example. There was also heavy rain when the crew declared an emergency Monday night. ABC News reports it may have been a "nightmare scenario": Flight data indicates the plane circled three times just outside Medellin. The airport it was headed to is an infamously challenging one, located in a mountainous region at 7,000 feet, an elevation that necessitates a high-speed approach. Three players from the Chapecoense team survived the crash but sustained serious injuries, reports Reuters: Goalkeeper Jackson Follmann has had his right leg amputated; defender Helio Neto suffered severe trauma to the skull, thorax, and lungs; and Alan Ruschel underwent spine surgery. A heart-wrenching final statement, per the AP: 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.