Simultaneous tributes were held at packed stadiums in Colombia and Brazil following the crash of a plane carrying a small-town soccer team, killing 71 people.

The tributes took place on Wednesday night as investigators, aided by dramatic cockpit recordings, were studying why the jet apparently ran out of fuel before slamming into a muddy mountainside near Medellin’s international airport.

In the sometimes chaotic exchange with the air traffic tower, the pilot of the British-built jet requested permission to land because of “fuel problems” without making a formal distress call.

A female controller explained another plane that had been diverted with mechanical problems of its own was already approaching the runway and had priority, instructing the pilot to wait seven minutes.

As the jetliner circled, the pilot grew more desperate.

“Complete electrical failure, without fuel,” he said in the tense final moments before the plane set off on a four-minute death spiral.

By then the controller had gauged the seriousness of the situation and told the other plane to abandon its approach to make way for the charter jet.

A shot of players entering the cockpit during the flight. Photo: Twitter.

It was too late – just before going silent, the pilot said he was flying at 9000 feet (2743m) and made a final plea to land: “Vectors, senorita. Landing vectors.”

The recording, obtained by Colombian media, appeared to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic exchange.

The black box audio from the Chapecoense flight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh3ES6HPKQ4

These, along with the lack of an explosion upon impact, pointed to a rare case of fuel burnout as a cause of the crash of the jetliner, a BAE 146 Avro RJ85 that experts said was at its maximum range on the flight from Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

While the experts worked, thousands of white-clad supporters of Medellin’s Atletico Nacional club jammed the stands of the 40,000-seat stadium where the team had been scheduled to play a Copa Sudamericana finals match against Brazil’s ill-fated Chapecoense.

The usually combative Atletico fans put sportsmanship first and paid tribute to the rival team, which they have urged be named the champion.

A boy sits alone on the stands during a tribute to the players of Brazilian team Chapecoense. Photo: AFP/Getty

The names of the 71 victims of Monday night’s crash were read aloud while a military band played taps and Black Hawk helicopters that helped in the rescue operations – pulling six people alive from the wreckage – flew overhead.

In the stands, mourners stood for a minute’s silence holding candles and signs reading “We’re all Chapeconese” and “Soccer has no borders”.

Across the continent, in Brazil, the mood was even more sombre as residents of the small agricultural city of Chapeco gathered in the team’s stadium for a Catholic Mass with relatives of the victims and the players who did not travel with the team to Medellin.

At the same time they had expected to be home watching their team on TV, more than 22,000 Chapecoense fans cried as they watched videos of tributes that poured in from around the world.

Three of the team’s players are among the crash’s survivors, who remain in a critical but stable condition.