Brazil team honored as experts study possible fuel problem

MEDELLIN, Colombia -- Simultaneous tear-filled tributes were held at packed stadiums in Colombia and Brazil for the victims of this week's air tragedy that claimed 71 lives when a chartered plane crashed while ferrying a scrappy, small-town soccer team to the finals of a prestigious South American tournament.

The tributes took place Wednesday night as crash investigators aided by dramatic cockpit recordings were studying why the British-built jet apparently ran out of fuel before slamming into a muddy mountainside just a few miles from Medellin's international airport.

In the sometimes chaotic exchange with the air-traffic tower, the jet pilot requested permission to land because of "fuel problems" without making a formal distress call.

A female controller explained another plane that had been diverted with mechanical problems of its own already was approaching the runway and had priority, instructing the pilot to wait seven minutes.

As the jetliner circled in a holding pattern, the pilot grew more desperate.

"Complete electrical failure, without fuel," he said in the tense final moments before the plane set off on a four-minute death spiral.

By then the controller had gauged the seriousness of the situation and told the other plane to abandon its approach to make way for the charter jet.

It was too late.

Just before going silent, the pilot said he was flying at an altitude of 9,000 feet and made a final plea to land: "Vectors, senorita. Landing vectors."

The recording appeared to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic exchange.

These, along with the lack of an explosion upon impact, pointed to a rare case of fuel burnout as a cause of the crash of the jetliner, a BAE 146 Avro RJ85 experts said was at its maximum range on the flight from Santa Cruz, Bolivia.