Colombia honours decimated football team a year after plane crash

Colombia unveils memorial to football team tragedy
Colombia unveils memorial to football team tragedy
By Robert Hackwill

Colombians have marked the first anniversary of the plane crash that claimed the lives of 71 people, inaugurating a plaque dedicated to the victims as well as the survivors of the ill-fated flight.

A year ago, a plane carrying Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense to the final of the Copa Sudamericana crashed into a hillside near Medellin, Colombia. Only six of the 77 people on board survived.

"We have love and affection and a very close relationship with our Chapeco friends; friends who were always very close," said the president of Atletico Nacional, the team Chapecoense were supposed to play, Andres Botero Phillipsbourne.

It was Chapecoense's first-ever South American tournament final, but the dream turned into a nightmare when the team plane ran out of fuel.  

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