A total of 69 people died when a Colombian military plane crashed soon after take-off earlier this week, the country’s armed forces said in a statement on Tuesday, in an incident that injured 57 others.
The Lockheed Martin-built LMT.N Hercules C-130 transport plane was carrying 126 people and crashed after taking off from Puerto Leguizamo, on the border with Peru.
The injured have been transported to various hospitals, the armed forces said in the statement, while the remains of those who died will be identified by forensic officials in Bogotá and then returned to their families. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
The dead included members of the military, air force and two police officers, according to defence ministry officials.
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The devastating death toll, from a crash in a desolate, jungle-dense region, reverberated across Colombia, as residents rushed to the scene to help rescue soldiers and the military mounted a massive airlift to transport the injured to hospitals.
“At this time we don’t have any more details except that as soon as it took off, the aeroplane suffered a problem and descended toward the ground, a couple of kilometres from the airport,” Gen Carlos Fernando Silva Rueda, the commander of Colombia’s air force, said in a video statement on Monday night.
In a message posted on Monday afternoon on social media, president Gustavo Petro said dozens of people were injured. He thanked the residents in the Putumayo area who scrambled to the crash site on motorcycles and on foot to help those injured and to put out the blaze from the crash.
“That is how a homeland is built,” he said on social media, adding residents “went all the way to the airport runway and brought water and love to the boys”.
Luis Emilio Bustos, the mayor of Puerto Leguízamo, told The New York Times at least 14 people who had arrived at the town’s hospital were in “grave condition”.
“We continue to work and continue to conduct rescue missions, taking into account that many bodies fell far away,” he said in a voice message on Monday evening. “Others, possibly because of the large amount of fire, will be difficult to find.”
A video released by Noticias Caracol, a Colombian news outlet, seems to show the aircraft losing altitude and coming down over a field as a resident screams, “Oh, it fell!”
The plane was travelling to Puerto Asís, a town about 200km from Puerto Leguízamo. It crashed in a region lined with farms of coca plants harvested to make cocaine, where armed groups involved in illegal drug trafficking have a large presence.
Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez, the defence minister, said there were “no indications of an attack by illegal actors”. He added that the fire at the crash site had caused some of the ammunition being transported by the aeroplane to explode.
“I express my most sincere condolences to the families of those affected and, in respect for their pain, I call for avoiding speculation until official information is available,” Sánchez said in a post on social media.
Videos posted on social media by El Tiempo, the largest newspaper in Colombia, showed a large fire in a field and a chaotic scene as residents on motorbikes cleared the way for soldiers rushing to the scene, on foot and in trucks.
The crash occurred in an isolated pocket of Colombia on the banks of the Putumayo river, which divides northern Peru from Colombia. Bustos said the injured were being airlifted to major hospitals elsewhere in the country.
“It’s very far,” he said. “It’s a remote town in a rural zone, and access is very limited.”
The Colombian military said it had deployed helicopters and an aircraft that together could airlift as many as 74 people.
A video of the seeming crash site posted by Semana, a Colombian magazine, showed fire and smoke rising from what appeared to be remains of the aircraft. Another video posted by the magazine showed at least three soldiers, one of whom had blood on his face, being driven in the back of motorcycles by local residents. – This article originally appeared in The New York Times/Reuters
