Chapecoense, 5 years after the tragedy: a key arrest, several more deaths and sports toughness

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November 28, 2016. A plane carrying 77 people crashes less than 20 kilometers from the airport in Medellin. Shortly after, 71 victims were confirmed and that the aircraft corresponded to the staff of the Chapecoense Brazilian, who had managed to qualify for the grand final of the South American Cup. The National Athletic Colombian was going to be his rival, but the match could not be disputed due to the tragedy. In two months it will be five years since a historic blow for football and it will do so with a detention that can change everything and after several losses that have hit the club.

Celia Castedo Monastery, the Bolivian official of the air control department, was in charge of giving way to the flight. The investigation that was carried out confirmed human errors and possible negligence. Castedo, since then, went to Brazil and requested an asylum that has ended five years later with this detention. Not much information has been released, but the investigation can be finalized after his arrest.

“The Bolivian woman was a specialist in flight safety and, at the time, would have left, fraudulently, to observe the minimum procedural requirements for the approval of the aircraft flight plan, since in the program presented, the flight autonomy was not adequate for the trip, “the Federal police.

Castedo, in his day, denounced “pressure and harassment“to justify his flight to Brazil. In addition, he defended that it was the airline that did not take into account his analysis of the plane that later ended up crashing. Among other ‘drawbacks’, he pointed out the little autonomy that the aircraft had and that was key in the tragedy that occurred in Colombian territory.

Plane failures

Of the 77 people who were traveling, only six made it out alive. Three of them were footballers, two were part of the crew and the last one was a journalist. They were the ones who managed to get rid of a cluster of errors that ended, in addition to this latest arrest, with the suspension of the airline to which the plane belonged.

The Chapecoense was preparing to travel from Santa Cruz, in Bolivia, to Medellín. He was going to face Atlético Nacional in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final. However, he would never arrive at the airport as planned. The first investigations left no room for doubt: it was an accident caused by a “human factor”.

The plane was 500 kilos overweight, flew above the 29,000-foot altitude it had set as a limit, and began its flight without the reserve gasoline it needed. In addition, shortly after, it was learned that one of the pilots had an arrest warrant on him for having left the Bolivian Air Force.

When they were less than 20 kilometers from the airport, the plane’s four engines stopped working. It took just over three and a half minutes until contact with the cabin was lost due to the accident. Two minutes before this, the total failure was confirmed. The rest is – sad – history.

Next November 28, 2021 it will be the anniversary of this hard episode. A date that will arrive with a Chapecoense very different from the one of yesteryear, since it has lost several important faces and has even faced a painful decline in 2019 that went around the world because of the affection that the entity had won after what happened years. behind.

After his return to the Brazilian top flight in January 2021, this season he is close to losing his place in the national football elite again and will have to look for a comeback that will take him out of the last position with a single victory on his locker.

Painful losses

The history of Chapecoense is tragic, but it also shows the other side of the sport. The Brazilian club received numerous shows of support from clubs in different countries. Tributes and recognitions that, however, do not serve to restructure a club after a blow like the one they had received. However, they managed to recover the life of a team whose name will go down in history.

The key piece, or at least one of them, was Ricardo Magro. The president, as they recognized from the club itself, was the great culprit that Chapecoense continued forward. “With his courage, greatness and wisdom, he allowed the team to return to the path of victory,” they indicated in their day from the entity. Magro came to office in 2019, three after the accident occurred. The challenge before him was enormous. It achieved the objectives, but only in the short term.

Magro lost his life last December 2020. In his case, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At just 57 years old, what had been the light of Chapecoense in recent months went out. A death that left the Brazilian team touched, whose dome was once again headless.

Before, the Chapecoense fan also had to face a heavy loss. It was in 2019 and in this case of a survivor of the accident. That journalist who managed to escape the tragedy had become one more collaborator of the club’s foundation. A name to keep in mind and that, luckily to remain alive, was a recognized character among the followers of the entity. It was, as they pointed out, “a symbol of the reconstruction” of Chapecoense. A heart attack while playing a soccer game with friends took his life.

The tragedy seems to have passed with the Brazilian club. Despite this, the constant struggle to continue growing continues. Chapecoense will go down in history for having continued with his soccer project. Also the names of those who made it out alive.

Erwin Tumiri, survivor, you well know. The player avoided death in 2016 and did so in 2021 when a bus fell several meters, claiming the lives of 20 people. Tumiri was inside and only had to be admitted to the hospital. His dribbling was repeated, like that of a Chapecoense who deals with constant injuries. “What I always do, let’s say, even on that occasion, is that I entrust myself to God. “And so, Tumiri will be able to tell his story and that of the club even though he now works as an official.

[Más información – La drástica decisión de uno de los supervivientes de la tragedia del Chapecoense]

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