A plane carrying 81 people crashed outside Medellin, Colombia on Monday night. There were initial reports of six survivors, but one of them died. USA TODAY
A chartered plane carrying the Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense crashed in northwestern Colombia on Monday night, killing 76 of the 81 people on board. The team had been scheduled to play in the Copa Sudamerica finals against Atletico Nacional on Wednesday in Medellin.
Here’s a timeline of other sports-related plane crashes.
Feb. 6, 1958 – Manchester United
A twin-engine plane carrying members of the Manchester United soccer club crashed after takeoff in icy conditions at a West German airport. Eight Manchester United players were among 23 people killed in the accident, which came on a trip back to the UK after a European Cup match in Serbia.
Oct. 29, 1960 – Cal Poly football
The grossly overloaded C-46 crashed upon takeoff from a Toledo, Ohio, airport, killing 22 — including 16 players — on board. Several others were seriously injured.
Ted Tollner, who was the Mustangs’ quarterback and would go on to coach at USC and San Diego State, was among those who survived.
Cal Poly canceled the rest of the 1960 season and didn’t play a game out of state for several seasons. Jim Fahey, a player on the team and a now-retired physical education teacher in Gilroy, Calif., said that the crash was a major reason why Oakland Raiders coach and famed broadcaster John Madden was never comfortable flying. Madden graduated from Cal Poly and was a coach at a nearby junior college at the time of the accident.
One of two planes chartered by the Wichita State’s football team crashed, killing 29 (14 players, 14 staff and boosters and a crew member) of the 40 on board. Two members later died in hospitals because of burns. The main contributors of the crash after the plane refueled in Denver en route to Logan, Utah, were pilot error and an overloaded Martin 4-0-4, a twin-engine prop that hadn’t been flown in years.
The game against Utah State was canceled, but Wichita State finished out the year as the NCAA and Missouri Valley Conference waived eligibility rules.
Nov. 14, 1970 – Marshall University football
Marshall University lost its entire football team when a chartered Douglas DC-9crashed as the team returned home from a game at East Carolina. The plane carried 75 people, including 37 members of the football team, eight coaches, 25 boosters, and five flight crew members when it went down on its approach to Huntington (W.V.) Tri-State Airport.
The rest of the season was canceled and the school nearly dropped the football program. The team, however, returned to action next season comprised mostly of junior varsity players who were not on the trip to ECU along with recruits and walk-ons, a season chronicled in the movie We Are Marshall.
Oct. 13, 1972 – Uruguayan rugby team
Members of the Old Christians Club rugby union team were on a twin-engine prop that crashed with 45 on board. Sixteen survived.
The survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism to remain alive, which was detailed in the 1974 book Alive and a 1993 motion picture by the same name. It took more than 70 days for rescuers to reach the crash site.
Jan. 27, 2001 – Oklahoma State men’s basketball
A twin-engine turboprop crashed 40 miles east of Denver, killing eight people associated with the Cowboys basketball program and two others. Freshman guard Nate Fleming and junior guard Dan Lawson were among those who perished in the crash in snowy conditions.
Thirty-seven members of the Kontinental Hockey League’s Lokomotiv Yaroslavl — including ex-NHL players Brad McCrimmon, Pavol Demitra and Ruslan Salei — were among the 44 people who died as the result of a Soviet-era jetliner crash near the Russian city of Yaroslavl.
The only survivor was the flight’s avionics flight engineer.
Pilot error and substandard aircraft maintenance were cited as the main reasons for the crash.
The Lokomotiv canceled the remainder of its 2011-12 season.
Nov. 17, 2011 – Oklahoma State women’s basketball
Oklahoma State women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke, assistant coach Miranda Serna and two supporters were killed when the single-engine Piper PA-28-180 they were in crashed on the way to a recruiting trip in Arkansas.
