A Colombian military plane carrying 128 people crashed and caught fire shortly after taking off from Puerto Leguizamo airfield, resulting in 66 deaths and leaving several others injured. Four individuals remain missing, and a search operation is underway to locate them.
The Lockheed Martin-built Hercules C-130 transport plane was carrying 11 Air Force members, 115 army personnel, and two national police officers.
Puerto Leguizamo is a small, remote town near the border with Peru. A member of the firefighting team told Caracol TV that the plane appeared to have been struck near the end of the runway during takeoff, with one of its wings clipping a tree as it plummeted.
Local residents were the first to reach the crash site for rescue efforts, with videos showing wounded soldiers being transported to hospitals on the back of motorcycles.
Authorities said the crash site was in a difficult-to-reach area, hindering rescue operations.
Videos shared by Colombian media outlets showed a thick black cloud of smoke rising from the field where the plane had crashed.
In a post on X, President Gustavo Petro criticised officials for creating obstacles to his efforts to modernize the military. "I will grant no further delays; the lives of our young people are at stake," he stated. "If civilian or military administrative officials are not up to this challenge, they must be removed."
The Hercules C-130 planes, first introduced in the 1950s, were initially acquired by Colombia in the late 1960s. In recent years, Colombia has modernized some of its older C-130s with newer models sent by the United States under a provision that permits the transfer of used or surplus military equipment.
According to a Reuters report, Hercules C-130s are frequently used in Colombia for troop transport as part of the military’s operations in the country’s ongoing six-decade-long internal conflict, which has resulted in over 450,000 deaths.