The Federal Police of Brazil (Portuguese: Polícia Federal) arrested this Thursday, 23rd september, Celia Castedo Monasterio, the controller responsible for analyzing and approving the flight plan of the aircraft involved in the Chapecoense disaster, in 2016.
LaMia Flight 2933 was a charter flight of an Avro RJ85, operated by LaMia, that on 28 November 2016 crashed near Medellín, Colombia, killing 71 of the 77 people on board.
The aircraft was transporting the Brazilian Chapecoense football squad and their entourage from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, to Medellín, where the team was scheduled to play at the 2016 Copa Sudamericana Finals. One of the four crew members, three of the players, and two other passengers survived with injuries.
The decision was given by the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Gilmar Mendes, who ordered the extradition of the investigated.
In the sentence signed by Gilmar Mendes, dated August 26, he says that Celia is "wanted by the Bolivian Justice to answer for the alleged practice of the crime of attacking the security of airspace".
Celia was responsible for analyzing and approving the flight plan for the plane that crashed near José Maria Cordova International Airport, near Medellin, Colombia, on November 29, 2016 .
In all, 71 people died in the tragedy that took the Chapecoense delegation and journalists to the 2016 Copa Sudamericana final.
The official report from Colombia's civil aviation agency, Aerocivil, found the causes of the crash to be fuel exhaustion due to an inappropriate flight plan by the airline, and pilot error regarding poor decision making as the situation worsened, including a failure to declare an emergency after fuel levels became critically low, thus failing to inform air traffic control at Medellin that a priority landing was required.
It was observed that, Celia fraudulently failed to observe minimum procedures for approving the aircraft's flight plan. Since 2016, Celia was a refugee in Brazil and lived in Corumbá, normally.
The flight plan of Lamia's plane, signed by Celia, who was carrying the Chapecoense team, showed that the pilot took off from Bolivia to Colombia without enough fuel to face any unforeseen event.
The Federal Police said that Celia will remain incarcerated in Corumbá, where she will await legal proceedings before being handed over to the Bolivian authorities.
Involved aircraft was an Avro RJ85, regd. CP-2933 , serial number E.2348, which first flew in the year 1999. After brief service with other carriers and a period in storage between 2010 and 2013, it was acquired by LaMia, a Venezuelan-owned airline operating out of Bolivia.
LaMia Avro RJ85 registered P4-LOR at Glasgow Airport, UK. This aircraft was registered as CP-2933 in January 2015 and crashed in the LaMia Airlines Flight 2933 accident in November 2016
Credit : Graham from Scotland - P4-LOR Bae146/RJ85 LAMIA, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53673500
