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RIO DE JANEIRO. – Fans mourned on Wednesday for a Brazilian football team decimated in a plane crash that killed 71 people in Colombia, as a recording emerged of the panicked pilot reporting he was out of fuel.Authorities are still investigating what caused the charter flight to crash in the mountains outside Medellin as it carried Cinderella-story team Chapecoense Real to a major match.

A haunting recording aired by Colombian media appeared to hold answers – though officials have not confirmed its authenticity.

“Ma’am, LAMIA 2933 has a total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel,” pilot Miguel Quiroga tells the control tower in the recording, minutes before the jet crashed on Monday night.

In the tape, the pilot had earlier asked for priority to land due to “fuel problems.” The request was granted by Medellin’s International Airport.

But the control tower then lost contact with the plane, whose fuselage was found plastered on a hillside 50 kilometres outside the city. – AFP.