Four Palmas players and soccer club president die in Brazil plane crash
A small-plane crash Sunday claimed the lives of four members of Brazil’s Palmas soccer team, as well as the club’s president and the plane’s pilot.
Players Lucas Praxedes, Guilherme Noé, Ranule and Marcus Molinari perished in the runway wreck, CNN Brasil reported, as did club president Lucas Meira and the pilot, identified only as Wagner.
The twin-engine plane took off at about 8:15 a.m. and crashed on takeoff, Reuters reported.
“The plane took off and crashed at the end of the runway at the Tocantinense Aviation Association,” the club said, according to Reuters. “We regret to report there are no survivors.”
The plane was on its way to Goiania, about 500 miles away, for a game between Palmas and Vila Nova on Monday, Reuters said. The game was to be among the last 16 of the Copa Verde tournament, a fourth-tier contest played by teams other than what Reuters described as the “traditional powerhouses of southern and northeastern Brazil.”
The club said it would postpone the match “at this time of such anguish and sadness” and pay tribute to the fallen players at a rescheduled game on Thursday, CNN Brasil reported.
Brazilian soccer has been beset by tragedy in recent years. In 2016, 71 people, including 19 players on the Chapecoense team, were killed when their chartered plane ran out of fuel and crashed near Medellin, Colombia. They had been en route to the Copa Sudamericana final.
On Sunday, Brazil’s soccer world found itself once again in mourning.
“In this moment of pain and dismay, the club asks for prayers for family members to whom it will provide the necessary support,” the team said in its statement, according to CNN Brasil.
