At least 66 people have been killed after a military aircraft crashed while taking off on Monday, according to the head of Colombia's armed forces.
At least 66 military personnel have been killed and dozens injured in a Colombian Air Force Hercules plane crash on Monday, which took place while the aircraft was taking off in the department of Putumayo, an Amazonian province.
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The plane was transporting troops, according to the Minister of Defence Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez.
Four people are still missing and dozens have been injured. The plane was carrying 128 people on board: 115 were from the Army, 11 crew members, and two from the National Police, General Hugo Alejandro López Barreto said.
“At the moment, we have no information or indications that it was an attack by an illegal armed group,” he added.
Sánchez wrote on social media X, "It is with deep sorrow that I report that a Hercules aircraft of our Air Force suffered a tragic accident while taking off from Puerto Leguízamo (Putumayo), when it was transporting troops of our Public Force," the minister said in a social media post.
He added that military units are already in the area of the accident, although "the number of possible victims and the causes of the accident have not yet been precisely determined".
Sánchez said that "all the care protocols for the victims and their families have been activated, as well as the corresponding investigation", and called for caution while the investigations continue. "In respect for their pain, I call on you to avoid speculation until we have official information," he said, describing the accident as "a deeply painful event for the country".
The small town's morgue that borders Ecuador and Peru received the bodies of the victims, while its two local clinics treated the wounded before being flown out to larger cities, Deputy Mayor Carlos Claros said.
Carlos Fernando Silva, the commander of Colombia’s air force, said that two planes were sent to fly the wounded back to hospitals in the capital, Bogota, and elsewhere.
Erich Saumeth, a Colombian aviation and military analyst, said the Hercules C-130 that crashed on Monday had been donated by the United States in 2020 and underwent a full engine overhaul three years later.
“I don't think this plane crashed because of a lack of good parts,” Saumeth said. He said investigators will need to determine why the four-propeller Hercules’ engines failed so soon after take-off.