You don’t need to be a football fan to mourn the 71 people who died in the horrific plane crash in Medellin, Colombia. While the accident took the lives of 19 players and coaching staff of the Chapecoense Brazilian
football team, the tragedy touched the world with intertwined narratives, victims and survivors, tributes and legacies.
Even though the plane’s black boxes, which record flight details, are intact, a full investigation into the crash is expected to take months. But we already know something, and it’s chilling: When it crashed, the plane had no fuel. It also suffered a total electrical failure. The power outage is easily explained. Since the engines are the electrical source, without fuel, the electrical source would have been completely lost.
Harder to explain is why there was no fuel. Running out of fuel is supposed to be very rare in commercial aviation because there are so many checks and balances to make sure there is enough fuel on board. Scheduled commercial aircraft in the US, for example, are customarily flown with 30 minutes of fuel in reserve to reach an alternative airport in an emergency, no matter how distant, plus 45 minutes of additional fuel as a safety margin to account for adverse wind and weather conditions.
But in this case the plane did not have fuel, a tragedy and a huge miscalculation by all accounts because it was just five miles away from the airport before it crashed into the mountains.
A plane with no fuel can be caused by a number of factors including a fuel leak, internal icing, failure of the fuel pumps or gauges, or crew error managing the engine’s use of fuel. In this case, it appears the culprit was gross human negligence that allowed the jet to deplete its fuel during its charter flight from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to Medellin. The pilot had the option to refuel in Bogota, but headed straight to Medellin. He took the decision. He thought the fuel would last.
Looking at the radar track, the plane appears to circle for around 13 minutes while another flight with a problem was given priority to land. Did the crew not make it clear to the ground that they had a crisis on their hands?
It is the classic example of how accidents normally come down to a big decision which must be taken in moments but which are fatally wrong in hindsight, leading to a catastrophe.
Aside from the technical aspect, in the immediate aftermath of the crash, South American football’s governing body CONMEBOL will face calls to introduce controls on standards and regulations of the flight travel of teams. In the bigger picture, because charter and international operators can operate under different rules, the increase in the number and intensity of international football club competitions and exhibition friendlies can bring flight tragedies in their wake. Travel costs for the distances demanded by football clubs and national team competitions the world over are extensive and the costs are high, putting pressure on federations and clubs to seek out the most competitive charter prices and airlines. However, in doing so, they are at times taking a dangerous risk.
The Chapecoense crash brought memories of previous football tragedies: The 18-strong Torino squad in 1949, the so-called 1958 ‘Busby Babes’ of Manchester United, and the 18 members of the Zambian national team in 1993. Every crash was a national and international tragedy.
Chapecoense is a small football team from the south of Brazil which conquered the hearts of all of Brazil on the way to the Copa Sudamericana final. In the 43 years of its history, Chape, as the team is lovingly called, celebrated its happiest moment when they qualified for the final against Colombia’s Atletico Nacional just last week. A week later came its darkest day, one felt by all the world.
