Crew knew about little fuel on Chapecoense flight
Civil aviation authorities in Colombia on Friday (Apr. 27) produced the final report on the air crash involving the delegation of Chapecoense, a Brazilian football team flying from Santa Cruz de La Sierra, in Bolivia, to Medellín, Colombia, where the squad was to play the South American Cup final against Atlético Nacional. The accident took place on November 29, 2016, and caused the deaths of 71 of the 77 people on board, most of whom members of the Brazilian club.
The crew is believed to have been aware that the aircraft, of Bolivia’s Lamia, was traveling with a small amount of fuel, which played a decisive role in the crash. Previous reports put together by Colombian civilian aviation authorities already mentioned weight overload at the moment of the accident, but named lack of fuel as the cause of the accident.
The report presented today was drawn up by investigators, authorities, and institutions in five countries: Brazil, Bolivia, the US, the UK, and Colombia.
Among the decisions mentioned as “crucial in the accurate depiction of this unfortunate event,” the report says that carrier Lamia “planned this charter flight with no connections between Santa Cruz (Bolivia) and Rionegro (Colombia), and failed to meet the international requirements on the minimum amount of fuel, as it did not bear in mind the necessary fuel to fly to an alternate airport.”
Also according to the document, the plane was 2.3 thousand kg short of fuel (a total of 11.6 thousand kg was required for the Santa Cruz–Rionegro route). “Neither the company nor the crew made the decision to land at another airport, even though they were aware of the small amount of gas,” the report reads, also mentioning that the crew ruled out the possibility of landing in Bogotá, or any other airport, to refuel.
The report concludes that Lamia had organizational deficiencies, faced a difficult economic situation, in addition to issues in the operation security management system and in complying with fuel policies.
