RIO DE JANEIRO — After climbing the ranks of Brazilian soccer, the team was on its way to face one of its biggest tests yet: a chance to win the final of the Copa Sudamericana, an international competition for South American soccer.
But over the mountains near Medellín, Colombia, the plane carrying the members of Chapecoense, a soccer team from a scrappy industrial city in southern Brazil, made an emergency call on Monday night after experiencing an electrical failure, the authorities said.
Moments later, it crashed into the mountains with 77 people aboard.
Only six people survived the crash, aviation officials said: three players, two crew members and a journalist who was accompanying the team.