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Reliving the haunting moment I discovered the Chapecoense plane crash, and the legacy of pain and memory that followed.
There are memories that stay tattooed in your mind and don't fade away with time. Some are beautiful, others not so much. The latter are bivalent: they leave wounds, traumas that are hard to heal, but they also create eternal bonds that can't be broken.
Albeiro Valencia Tabárez, a noble and tough-willed peasant, lives in the El Pantalio village of La Unión, Antioquia. His life was divided into two parts on the night of November 28, 2016. Past 11:00 p.m. that Monday, he heard on the radio that a plane was missing. The voice added that it was the plane carrying the Chapecoense football team from Brazil, heading to the Copa Sudamericana final against Atlético Nacional.
La última comunicación cerca del aeropuerto
The last communication was near the airport, apparently near La Unión. Everything was vague. That night, it was raining and cold. In the upper part of the village, where Albeiro lived as a farm caretaker, there was no noise, no explosion.
He didn't believe the plane was nearby, but he went out to look. On the Cerro Gordo, facing La Unión, he saw something unusual: the tail of a white plane with red and green lines. He was in shock. He rushed to the site, hoping to help, save lives.
Primeros en llegar al lugar del accidente
He was one of the first to arrive at the crash site nearly ten years ago. On a sunny Friday in late September 2026, Albeiro sits on his farm,
Chapecoense Plane Crash Survivor Memory Trauma Colombia Football La Unión