Surviving Journalist From Chapecoense Recounts The Accident

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Journalist Rafael Henzel, one of the six survivors of the Chapecoense plane crash, returned to Brazil after two weeks of intense recovery in Colombia.

On the same plane back to the city of Chapecó on Tuesday was the player Jackson Follman, another survivor of the tragedy.

The journalist was awaited upon arrival by his 11-year-old son, who had an emotional reunion recorded by a person accompanying them. The images show how the journalist breaks down in tears when hugging his son. Henzel wore an official shirt of Atlético Nacional de Medellín, the city where the incident occurred, and his little one a shirt in honor of his father with the phrase "Fuerza Rafa".

In an interview with the Brazilian television program Fantástico, Henzel recounted the last moments of the flight that transported the players of the Chapecoense team, which crashed when it was going to land at the Medellín airport on November 28.

“From one minute to the next the plane's lights went out. No one reported anything, no one said an abnormality was happening. I totally deny that the crew would warn us at any moment about the lack of fuel and that we could make an emergency landing. That information was never, I insist, never provided to us,”said the journalist.

"No one told us to fasten our seat belts. Every time we asked about arrival we were told that ten minutes were left. That created some fear, but we were not advised of anything."

After the accident, he said he woke up in severe pain - from the seven broken ribs - and surrounded by rescuers looking for survivors. His worst moment, he pointed out, was finding out about the fate of his fellow journalists with whom he traveled in the back of the plane. "The saddest moment for me was when I saw my dead companions at my side," he acknowledged.

The LaMia company, owner of the aircraft, is under investigation by the prosecutors of Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia. The company's manager is in pretrial detention.

Of the 21 journalists who traveled to Medellín to cover the meeting between Club Chapecoense and Atlético Nacional for the final of the Copa Sudamericana, Henzel was the only one who survived.

So far, the hypothesis of the authorities investigating the incident is that the plane ran out of fuel a few minutes from the airport, causing it to lose altitude and crash into a hill.