Bogota: A military transport plane with 128 people on board, mostly soldiers, crashed shortly after taking off Monday in Puerto Leguizamo, Colombia, killing at least 66 people and leaving dozens injured, the head of Colombia’s armed forces said.
General Hugo Alejandro Lopez Barreto said that four military personnel were still missing.
“Sadly, as a consequence of this tragic accident, 66 of our military elements died,” he said.
“At the moment, we have no information or indications that it was an attack by an illegal armed group,” Barreto added.
In a video posted on social media, Deputy Mayor Carlos Claros said that the bodies of the victims were taken to the small town’s morgue, and that the only two clinics in town treated the injured before they were flown to larger cities.
Puerto Leguizamo is located in Putumayo, an Amazonian province that borders Ecuador and Peru.
“I want to thank the people of Puerto Leguizamo who came out to help the victims of this accident,” Claros told Colombian television station RCN.
Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez said on X that the plane that crashed Monday was transporting troops to another city in Putumayo.
Images shared online by Colombian media outlets showed a black cloud of smoke rising from a field where the plane crashed and a truck with soldiers rushing to the site.
The aeroplane had 128 people on board, including 115 from the Army, 11 crew members and 2 from the National Police. Baretto said 57 people were evacuated.
Media outlets shared videos of soldiers being rushed from the site on motorcycles driven by residents, while another group of residents tried to put out the fire that the plane crash had created in a field surrounded by dense foliage.
Carlos Fernando Silva, the commander of Colombia’s air force, said details of the crash were not yet known, “except that the plane had a problem and went down about two kilometres from the airport.”
The air force commander added that two planes, with 74 beds, were sent to the area to fly the injured back to hospitals in the capital, Bogota, and elsewhere.
Petro seized on the accident to promote what he called his longtime campaign to modernise planes and other equipment used by his country’s military, saying those efforts have been blocked by “bureaucratic difficulties” and suggesting that some officials should be held accountable.
“If civilian or military administrative officials are not up to the challenge, they must be removed,” Petro said.
Critics of the president pointed out that military aircraft have been given fewer flight hours under the Petro administration due to budget cuts, which leads to less experienced crews.
Erich Saumeth, a Colombian aviation expert and military analyst, said that the Hercules C-130 that crashed Monday had been donated by the United States to Colombia in 2020. Three years later, it went through a detailed revision known as an overhaul, in which its engines were inspected, and key components were replaced.
“I don’t think this plane crashed because of a lack of good parts,” Saumeth said. He said that investigations will have to determine why the engines of the Hercules, which has four propellers, failed so quickly after take off.
In a message on X Monday, Defence Minister Sanchez said that so far there were no signs indicating that the plane was attacked by rebel groups that operate near Puerto Leguizamo.
Sanchez wrote that the accident was “profoundly painful for the country,” adding that: “We hope that our prayers can help to relieve some of the pain.
