Bolivian aviation official seeks asylum in Brazil during Colombian flight crash investigation

A WOMAN accused of approving the doomed flight that killed 71 on board has fled to Brazil as the investigation takes a surprising turn.

A WOMAN who worked for the Bolivian aviation agency that approved last week’s doomed LaMia flight has fled to Brazil as the crash investigation threatens to spill into a diplomatic crisis.

Brazilian authorities said the woman presented herself in the city of Corumba and applied for refugee status, the Associated Press reported.

A statement from Brazilian prosecutors said Celia Castedo worked at the Bolivian aviation agency that approved the November 28 flight between Santa Cruz, Bolivia and Medellin, Colombia.

The British-built chartered plane was carrying players and staff from Brazil’s Chapecoense football club, who were on their way to play in the Copa Sudamericana final, when it crashed outside Medellin, killing 71 of the 77 people on board.

Insufficient fuel has been identified as a factor in the tragedy.

A police officer sifts through the wreckage of the chartered aeroplane that crashed in La Union, outside Medellin, on November 28 local time. Picture: Colombia National Police via AP

According to flight plan documents published in Bolivian media and reviewed by AP, Castedo noted several irregularities in the doomed plane, including that it did not have a comfortable margin of fuel to fly directly from Santa Cruz to Medellin. AP said the authenticity of those documents couldn’t be immediately verified.

According to The Guardian, Castedo said if her warnings had been heeded in Bolivia, where the plane made a stopover, the accident could have been prevented.

She said she needed asylum in Brazil to avoid prosecution in Bolivia.

Brazil’s federal police investigator Sergio Luis Macedo told AP a decision on Castedo’s application status could take up to a year, and until then she was free to move around Brazil if she kept in touch with authorities.

Back in Bolivia, Castedo has been accused of negligence for approving the flight, The Guardian reported.

Mourners attend the burial of Chapecoense president Sandro Pallaoro, who died in the crash, in Chapeco, Brazil, on Sunday. Picture: AP/Andre Penner

A top-ranked Bolivian government official said Castedo was potentially evading justice by fleeing to Brazil and called for her immediate deportation.

The government minister, Carlos Romero, also said she had not left Bolivia legally.

“What she has done is very serious,” he told reporters.

“It’s a way of escaping the judicial system.”

Romero said Castedo was not being persecuted in Bolivia.

Castedo’s son, Sebastian Castedo, told AP via Facebook he was not aware of his mother’s whereabouts but the truth would “come later by authorities other than those in Bolivia”.

Several high-ranking Bolivian authorities have been suspended since an investigation was launched into the crash.

The Bolivian government has also filed a lawsuit against the plane’s operator, LaMia.