Columbia Plane Crash: Audio Recording Revealed Aircraft Ran Out of Fuel
The pilot of the chartered plane that crashed late Monday boarding with Brazilian soccer team, journalists, coaches, and other crews in the Andes revealed that the aircraft had run out of fuel. Based on the leaked recording of the conversation, the pilot pleaded for permission to make an immediate landing because the aircraft was running out of fuel.
The Associated Press reported that a controller gave the pilot several instructions that the British-made Avro RJ85 has lost its speed and altitude about eight miles from the airport in Medellin. The pilot of the British-built jet could be heard as he asked permission to the air traffic tower for authorization to land due to fuel problems.
The pilot grew more desperate as the plane circled in a holding pattern. In his tensed final moments before the aircraft crashed into a mountainside on, he announced that it was a complete electrical failure, without fuel.
According to the New York Times, the recording was obtained on Wednesday by the Columbian media. The recorded audio confirms the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying who overheard the frantic exchange.
The chartered plane carrying the Brazilian first division football team crashed while heading to the finals of a regional tournament and killing 71 people. Six people survived in the crash. The British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane was operated by charter airline named LaMia, declared that the aircraft lost radar contact just before 10 pm on Monday (0300 GMT) because of an electrical failure.
As of now, the authorities are avoiding of singling out any cause of the crash that killed 77 people on board. They will also speak to the co-pilot on Avianca commercial flight, Juan Sebastian Upegui who was in contact with the air traffic controllers. The co-pilot describes a four-minute audio recording to a friend about the doomed flight's pilot request to land because he was out of fuel.
