Argentina

Bolivia Suspends Airline After Deadly Crash in 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, including members of Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team traveling to the Copa Sudamericana finals.

The airline was founded in Venezuela in 2009 but operates in Bolivia.

According to a leaked recording of the final minutes of the doomed flight, the pilot of the chartered plane told air traffic controllers he had run out of fuel before crashing into the Andes.

The recordings, obtained by several Colombian media outlets, seemed to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic pleas from the doomed airliner. 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 airliner, which experts say was flying at its maximum range.

For now, authorities are avoiding singling out any one cause of the crash. 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 retrieved Tuesday at the crash site on a muddy hillside.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
Contact Us