A chartered plane carrying Chapecoense to the biggest match in the Brazilian football club's history crashed into a Colombian hillside and broke into pieces, killing 71 people and leaving six survivors.

Colombia's official emergency management agency UNGRD had earlier announced that 75 had died, but following rescue efforts the group revised the total number of people who had been on board from 81 to 77, which also lowered the death toll by four.

"The balance is the following: six are injured and 71 died for a total of 77 people," UNGRD director Carlos Ivan Marquez said on Tuesday. "We made an adjustment of the count because four people did not make the trip at the last minute."

The British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane, operated by a charter airline named LaMia, declared an emergency at 10 p.m. local time on Monday because of an electrical failure, aviation authorities said.

Authorities responded to the plane crash at a hill in La Union in the region of Antioquia, according to the Jose Maria Cordova airport. The municipality is roughly 22 miles from the airport.

Confirmado, la aeronave con matrícula CP2933 * transportaba al equipo @ChapecoenseReal. Al parecer hay sobrevivientes. - José María Córdova (@AeropuertoMDE) November 29, 2016

The charter aircraft, which took off from Bolivia, was carrying 68 passengers and nine crew members, including Chapecoense, which was expected to play in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional on Wednesday in Medellin.

Jose Gerardo Acevedo, a police colonel in Anahtioquia, confirmed to reporters that emergency personnel initially found six survivors, one of whom, player Marcos Danilo Padilha, later died.

Hours later, Colombia's emergency management organisation confirmed that another survivor had been pulled from the fuselage.

Among the survivors are Chapecoense football players Jackson Follman, Alan Ruschel and Helio Hermito Zampier Neto, according to Colombia's National Air Guard.

Ruschel was in the most serious condition and was later transported to another facility to undergo surgery for a spinal fracture. Neto also suffered multiple trauma injuries, hospital officials said.

Follmann had his right leg amputated. Doctors at the hospital where he was being treated said the goalkeeper is in an intensive care unit but in stable condition.

A Bolivian flight attendant, Ximena Suarez and a flight crew member, Erwin Tumiri, were in stable condition after being taken to a regional hospital for treatment, along with journalist Rafael Henzel Valmorbida, who was recovering from surgery.