A Reuters photographer at the scene said dozens of bodies were laid out and covered with sheets around the wreckage as some 30 rescuers, police and military personnel searched the crash site of the plane that had had 81 people aboard.
He said the BAe 146 charter aircraft had split in two with only the nose and wings recognisable and the tail end completely destroyed in the crash on Monday night.
There are unconfirmed reports that the team’s goalkeeper Danilo died in hospital after surviving the crash.
He was listed as one of six survivors by the Colombia’s civil aviation authority. Earlier police said one of the survivors died in hospital.
The plane that crashed was a British Aerospace 146, so UK experts are flying out to the crash site as part of the investigation.
A spokesman for the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch said: “As the State of Manufacture of the aircraft, the AAIB is sending a team of inspectors to Colombia to assist with the investigation of the aircraft accident at Medellin.”
He pointed out this is in line international protocols.
The head of Chapecoense’s board has given a tearful interview on Brazilian breakfast news show Bom Dia Brasil, writes Tom Phillips.
Plínio David de Nês Filho, the president of Chapecoense’s board, said those close to the club were devastated by what had happened.
De Nês Filho was supposed to take the same flight but in the end made other plans.
He said: “There were lifelong friends on this flight … and we think it will have been very hard for them to have survived this accident.
“This wasn’t just a group of people who respected each other professionally. It was a family, a group of friends.
“Everybody laughed so much, even in defeat… There was a great atmosphere, great joy. Yesterday morning, when I said goodbye to them, they said that they were going off to make our dreams come true. We shared this dream with all our emotion. And in the early hours of this morning, that dream came to an end.”
21 journalists were among 81 on board, reports say
