Plane crash in Colombia carrying members of Brazilian soccer team leaves at least 76 dead

At least 76 people died in a plane crash in Colombia and there were five survivors, police said Tuesday.
The chartered aircraft was carrying 81 people, including members of first division Chapecoense soccer team which was on its way to Colombia for a regional tournament final, crashed on its way to Medellin's international airport.
Gen. Jose Acevedo, head of police in the area surrounding Medellin, provided the information.
La Ceja Mayor Elkin Ospina, where the plane had crashed, confirmed at least three of the passengers were found alive. The British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane, operated by the charter airline LaMia, declared an emergency at 10 p.m. Monday because of an electrical failure.
"It's a tragedy of huge proportions," Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez told Blu Radio.
Authorities and rescuers were immediately activated but an air force helicopter had to turn back because of low visibility. Heavy rainfall is complicating the nighttime search and authorities urged journalists to stay off the roads to facilitate the entry of ambulances and rescuers.
Images broadcast on local television showed three male passengers arriving to a local hospital in ambulances on stretchers and covered in blankets connected to an IV. All were apparently alive and one of them was reportedly a Chapecoense defender named Alan Ruschel.
A video published on the team's Facebook page showed the team readying for the flight earlier Monday in Sao Paulo's Guarulhos international airport.
The team, from the small city of Chapeco, was in the middle of a fairy tale season. It joined Brazil's first division in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s and made it last week to the Copa Sudamericana finals -- the equivalent of the UEFA Europa League tournament -- after defeating two of Argentina's fiercest squads, San Lorenzo and Independiente, as well as Colombia's Junior.
The team is so modest that its 22,000-seat arena was ruled by tournament organizers too small to host the final match, which was instead moved to a stadium 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the north in the city of Curitiba.
"Chapecoense was the biggest source of happiness in the town," the club's vice-president, Ivan Tozzo, told Brazil's SporTV. "Many in the town are crying."