A plane carrying 72 passengers crashed near Medellin in Colombia while en route from Santa Cruz city in Bolivia on Tuesday, according to Colombian aviation authorities.
The official Twitter account of the Jose Maria Cordova International Airport in Rionegro said the passengers included members of the Brazilian football club Chapecoense and nine crew.
The team was due to play in the final of the South American club cup against Medellin team Atletico Nacional.
The Spanish-language account also tweeted that “apparently there are survivors.”
Rionegro city authorities confirmed there were five survivors. “The search will continue until it is necessary,” the municipality tweeted.
BluRadio Colombia released the names of players it said were among the survivors: Alan Ruschel, Marcos Danilo Padilha and Jackson Follmann. It added that a flight attendant was also among those rescued.
The station quoted provincial official Gustavo Villegas as saying the plane had “struck a hill and broke into two parts”.
Earlier, the Flightradar24.com website tweeted that flight “#LMI2933 was operated by a LAMIA Bolivia British Aerospace Avro RJ85, reg. CP-2933. The aircraft first flew in 1999.”
In another tweet, it said: “Flightradar24 received last ADS-B signal from #LMI2933 at 15,500 feet - about 30 km [19 miles] from destination MDE airport [Jose Maria Cordova International Airport] located at ~7,000 feet.”