At least 80 feared dead after Colombian military plane crash following take-off
A military transport aircraft, identified as a Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130, crashed shortly after takeoff from Puerto Leguizamo, Colombia, with at least 80 people feared dead.
A military transport aircraft, identified as a Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130, crashed shortly after takeoff from Puerto Leguizamo, Colombia, with at least 80 people feared dead.
A military transport aircraft, identified as a Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130, crashed shortly after takeoff from Puerto Leguizamo, Colombia, with at least 80 people feared dead.
At least 80 people are feared dead after a military transport aircraft crashed shortly after take-off in Colombia's south on Monday, officials said.
Colombia's defence ministry said a Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130 aircraft went down after taking off from Puerto Leguizamo, near the southern border with Ecuador. The plane was carrying soldiers at the time of the accident.
Military sources gave varying estimates of those on board, with one source telling AFP that around 80 personnel were feared to have been on the aircraft. Local outlet Blu Radio reported that as many as 110 soldiers were travelling on the flight.
Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez said the crash occurred in the Amazon region near the border with Peru, adding that the exact number of casualties and the cause of the accident were yet to be determined.
Two military sources told Reuters that at least 57 people had been evacuated alive from the wreckage. According to Blu Radio, the aircraft came down about 3 km from an urban centre. Visuals from the scene showed thick plumes of smoke rising from the crash site.
US defence company Lockheed Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "I hope there are no fatalities in this horrific accident that should never have happened," President Gustavo Petro said in a post on X, in which he criticized bureaucratic obstacles for delaying his plans to modernize the military.
"I will grant no further delays; it is the lives of our young people that are at stake," he said. "If civilian or military administrative officials are not up to this challenge, they must be removed."
Hercules C-130 planes were first launched in the 1950s and Colombia acquired its first models in the late 1960s. It has more recently modernised some older C-130s with newer models sent from the US under a law that allows for the transfer of used or surplus military equipment.
At the end of February, another Hercules C-130 belonging to the Bolivian Air Force crashed in the populous city of El Alto, barely missing a residential block.
More than 20 people died and another 30 were injured, and banknotes from the plane's cargo scattered around the city, prompting clashes between residents and security forces.
(With Reuters, AFP inputs)