Investigation launched as Brazil mourns

Colombia was investigating yesterday what made a charter plane crash into its northwestern mountains, killing 71 people including most of a Brazilian football team and 20 journalists.

Football fans were in tears in the team's hometown of Chapeco and their opponents mourned in the Colombian city of Medellin, where the doomed flight crashed Monday.

Brazil ordered three days of national mourning for the team.

Officials and media reports in Brazil and Colombia speculated that the plane might have run out of fuel or suffered a technical fault.

The Brazilian club Chapecoense Real was on the way to crowning a fairytale year in the Copa Sudamericana final against Medellin side Atletico Nacional.

The crash cut short their dream, sending the football world into mourning.

Announcing the crash on Monday night, the aviation authority said the plane had reported electrical problems just before the crash.

But a Colombian military source told AFP: "It is very suspicious that despite the impact there was no explosion. That reinforces the theory of the lack of fuel."

British and Brazilian investigators headed to Colombia to help with the probe, authorities said. Along with 71 bodies, investigators recovered the black boxes from the British Aerospace 146 charter plane from the remote crash site.

The charter flight run by Bolivian airline LAMIA crashed in mountains at an altitude of 3,300 meters (10,827 feet) as it approached its destination, authorities said.

Officials said the weather on the night was bad.

Six people miraculously survived the crash.  Two flight crew and a journalist following Chapecoense for the game against Medellin also survived.