At least 66 people were killed Monday when a Colombian Air Force plane with 125 people on board crashed shortly after takeoff in the South American country.
“Unfortunately, the information is about 34 dead,” Luis Emilio Bustos, the mayor of the nearby town of Puerto Leguizamo, initially said before the military updated the death toll to 66, according to Reuters.
Nearly two dozen people are still missing among the wreckage of the crash, which continued to burn amid rescue attempts, videos on social media showed.
Another official – Jhon Gabriel Molina, governor of Putumayo department – earlier told a local news channel that 34 people were killed and 70 were injured. He also said 21 people remained missing, adding: “These are numbers that can change.”
What we know about the crash
The accident involved a Hercules C-130 transport aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin that crashed after a flight just 1.5 kilometers after takeoff from Puerto Leguizamo. As a result of the crash, the ammunition and explosives carried on board the military transport aircraft also exploded, which made the rescue more difficult.
The plane is believed to have hit near the end of the runway during takeoff, a firefighter told local news outlet Caracol, according to Reuters. The plane’s wing later also clipped a tree as it fell.
While local residents rushed to rescue survivors and military vehicles later arrived, authorities said the crash site was difficult to access, complicating rescue efforts.
Hercules C-130 in Colombia
The C-130 Hercules made its debut in the 1950s, and Colombia received its first models in the late 1960s, according to Reuters.
Currently, Hercules C-130s used by the Colombian military are often used to transport soldiers to fight in the long-running internal conflict that has plagued the country for six decades and claimed over 450,000 lives.
While C-130 crashes are not that common, another of these Lockheed planes belonging to the Bolivian Air Force crashed in El Alto in late February, killing more than 20 and injuring another 30.
