Pilot said Brazil plane was out of fuel before deadly crash

A recording has emerged of the pilot of the doomed Brazilian plane saying he had run out of fuel, reports say.

Seventy-one people died when the aircraft crashed in a mountainous area in Colombia, including most of the Chapecoense football team and 20 Brazilian journalists on board.

There were six survivors – three players, two Bolivian crew members and a journalist.

The pilot radioed that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing, according to the co-pilot of another plane in the area.

One of the footballers, goalkeeper Jackson Follman, has undergone surgery to have his right leg amputated and is now recovering.

Defender Helio Neto is being treated in intensive care after suffering severe trauma to his skull, thorax and lungs.

His fellow defender, Alan Ruschel, has undergone spinal surgery.

The three other survivors were Brazilian journalist Rafael Valmorbida, air stewardess Ximena Suarez and flight technician Erwin Tumiri.

The plane, which departed from Santa Cruz in Bolivia, was carrying the side – based in Chapeco in southern Brazil – to Colombia for the biggest game in the club’s history.

They had been due to play in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final against Medellin’s Atletico Nacional on Wednesday.

The British Aerospace 146 came down as it approached Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellin.

Two “black box” flight recorders have been recovered from the crash site on a hillside near the town of La Union.

One local resident said the aircraft appeared to have lost power.

Nancy Munoz, who grows strawberries in the area, said: “It came over my house, but there was no noise, the engine must have gone.”

A Colombian military source earlier told the AFP news agency that the plane may have run out of fuel.

The source said: “It is very suspicious that despite the impact there was no explosion. That reinforces the theory of the lack of fuel.”