The owner of the plane which crashed with the Chapecoense football team on board has demanded over 8 million GBP in compensation from the accident.
Businessman Ricardo Albacete, who owned the Avro RJ85 aircraft which crashed as it was transporting the Chapecoense football team from Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia to Medellin in Colombia killing 71 people, has blamed the Colombian Special Administrative Unit of Civil Aeronautics (Areocivil) for the tragedy and is demanding compensation.
Albacete made the revelation when speaking to Colombian news programme CM& aired on RTVC’s Canal Uno.
He said that various investigations and surveys looking into the crash had shown that he was owed money, saying: “According to the accounts they have done, the value of the plane, the consolidated loss of earnings, the future loss of earnings, the interest: this comes out at around 11 million dollars (8.4 million GBP) . All for the damaged suffered by the disappearance of the plane.”
Albacete is demanding the money from the Colombian government and he says neither himself nor the families of the victims have received money from the insurance companies involved.
The businessman also said that the Aerocivil were wrong to “register the Bolivian company in some as an operator so that they could operate in Colombia” and were wrong to “let them fly without an insurance policy”.
An investigation has determined the causes of the crash were fuel exhaustion due to poor flight planning, failure to declare an emergency after fuel levels became critically low and air traffic control at Medellin giving other aircraft priority to land.
The 2016 accident killed 71 of the 77 people on board LaMia Flight 2933, including 19 Chapecoense players, in an incident which made global headlines.
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Story By: Alex Cope, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder,  Agency: Golder’s News And Sport
