At least 66 people died and 77 others were hospitalized when a Colombian Air Force aircraft carrying 125 people crashed shortly after takeoff in the Amazon region of the country’s south on Monday (the 23rd), authorities said.
The status of more than 40 people aboard has not yet been confirmed, President Gustavo Petro said in a post on X.
The commander of the Colombian Air Force, Fernando Silva, said in a video posted on social media that the aircraft carried 114 passengers and 11 crew members, and that authorities were still investigating the cause of the crash.
The Defense Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said earlier on X that the accident occurred when the C-130 Hercules, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, was taking off from Puerto Leguízamo, on the border with Peru, to transport troops.
Images published by the local broadcaster BluRadio showed thick clouds of smoke rising from the wreckage. A video showed the aircraft heading toward the ground a few seconds after takeoff. BluRadio said the crash occurred just 3 km from an urban center.
Two military sources told Reuters earlier that 71 people had been rescued from the wreckage.
A spokesperson for the American defense company Lockheed Martin said the company extended its condolences to those affected by the crash and was committed to helping Colombia in the investigation of the incident.
Modernization of the Armed Forces
In an earlier post on X, Petro criticized bureaucratic hurdles for delaying his plans to modernize the Armed Forces.
“I will not tolerate further delays; the lives of our young people are at stake,” he said. “If civil or military administrative staff are not up to the challenge, they should be removed.”
Several candidates in the May 31 presidential election in Colombia expressed condolences to the families of the soldiers injured on social media and called for an investigation.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Colombian Armed Forces, Hugo López, pledged to respond with “the utmost responsibility, humanity and transparency.”
The C-130 Hercules aircraft were first flown in the 1950s and Colombia acquired its first models in the late 1960s. More recently, the country has modernized some older C-130s with newer models sent by the United States, under a law that allows the transfer of used or surplus military equipment.
The details of the aircraft involved in the crash were not immediately available.
At the end of February, another Bolivian Air Force Hercules C-130 crashed in the populous city of El Alto, narrowly missing a residential block.
More than 20 people died and another 30 were injured, and the currency notes from the airplane’s cargo spread across the city, sparking clashes between residents and security forces.
