The last minutes of flight LMI 2933
Interactive: The Chapecoense aircraft crashed because it ran out of fuel while waiting to land
The airplane’s fuel capacity was very tight for the journey, but the pilot failed to refuel at a nearby airport and took too long to notify the emergency to the control tower.
Por:
Mariano Zafra.
Publicado el 2 dic 16 - 06:09 PM CST.
The aircraft approached the destination airport and began to descend for landing around 9:41 p.m. (local time). The last minutes of the flight were registered in the recording of conversations between LaMia’s pilot and a female air traffic controller [IN SPANISH].
Insufficient fuel for the journey
According to some specialized websites, the doomed plane had an approximate range of 1,842 miles (2,965 km), 6 miles (10 km) less than what was needed to complete the journey from the airport at Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia) to José María Cordova (Colombia), which is 1,849 miles (2,975 km).
The plane should have made a refueling stopover
A representative from LaMia, the company which owns the plane, told Página Siete [IN SPANISH] newspaper that the pilot should have made stops in Cobija (Bolivia) or Bogotá to refuel.
The original plan of the Chapeconense Brazilian football team was to fly directly from Brazil to Colombia on a chartered flight. Brazil's National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) did not authorize it. The Chapecoense team then changed their plans and flew to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where they took the LaMia flight.
Juan Jesús Gómez Hinestrosa contributed to this report.
SOURCES: Flightradar24, O Globo, El Tiempo, Airliners.net.
IMAGES: Google Earth.
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