Saturday, 3 December 2016

Brazilian Footballers Killed In Colombian Plane Crash To Be Flown Home



The bodies of Chapecoense players killed when the LaMia airline plane smashed into a mountain have been identified and are being embalmed 
and prepared for transport by military aircraft back to their homeland.

Heartbreaking pictures show the coffins laid out in the Colombian city's San Vicente Mortuary with chairs dressed in white left out for grieving friends and relatives.

The caskets are due to arrive in the club's home city of Chapeco as soon as midday on Friday and be taken directly to the club's stadium for a collective wake that Brazilian President Michel Temer is expected to attend.

The images of the caskets emerged as the Bolivian Civil Aviation Authority today suspended LaMia from operating.

It comes after teammates who did not board the doomed plane broke down in tears as they gathered with family and fans to remember those wiped out in the crash.

The tributes took place as crash investigators aided by dramatic cockpit recordings were studying why the British-built jet apparently ran out of fuel before slamming into a muddy mountainside just a few miles from Medellin's international airport.

Grieving Chapecoense players huddled together in front of tens of thousands of supporters at the team's stadium in Chapeco, southern Brazil on the night the club was supposed to be competing in the Copa Sudamericana final.

While the stands were a solid wall of green representing the team colours, the pitch was empty in a poignant reminder that players were due to be lining up for the club's biggest ever fixture against Atletico Nacional.

Instead of a shot at glory, the team, many of the chief staff, and 20 Brazilian journalists were killed when their charter plane slammed into the ground short of the airport late on Monday.









And instead of sitting excitedly in front of televisions to watch the action in Colombia, the people of Chapeco, a provincial city of about 200,000, trooped into their stadium to mourn and join in prayer.

from Dailymail

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