A Hercules C-130 military plane of the Colombian Aerospace Forces crashed shortly after takeoff near Puerto Leguízamo, in the Putumayo region, on the border between Colombia and Peru. A total of 125 soldiers were traveling on board the vehicle, including 11 crew members and 114 members of the Army. The flight departed from the nearby Caucayá military base and was headed to Puerto Asís, a city about 200 kilometers from Puerto Leguízamo.
The accident occurred yesterday, March 23, and according to the latest updates it caused at least 66 deaths: among the survivors, however, 8 are in very serious conditions while around thirty suffered minor injuries. This is the second aviation disaster to occur in less than 24 hours, after an Air Canada aircraft crashed into a fire truck during landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport.
The causes of this accident have not yet been confirmed by the authorities: according to the first hypotheses – also confirmed by the videos below – it is possible that the plane suffered an impact near the end of the runway during take-off, with a wing that then hit a tree during the fall. The crash would then have caused the plane to catch fire and the explosion of some devices on board.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez declared that the military plane was in technical condition to fly and that the crew was trained, confirming that the hypothesis of an attack had been ruled out among the causes.
The Hercules C-130 aircraft, produced by US-based Lockheed Martin, were first launched in the 1950s, with Colombia purchasing the first models as early as the late 1960s. In the country, Hercules C-130s are often used for the transport of troops and in particular for military operations conducted during the internal conflict against the National Liberation Army (ELN) and FARC dissidents.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro complained about the lack of more modern means due to bureaucratic difficulties: in the specific case of this accident, the Hercules C-130 aircraft had been delivered to Colombia by the United States in 2020, but the aircraft had been operational since 1983 and had therefore already accumulated 43 years of service. At the end of February, another Hercules C-130 of the Bolivian army crashed near La Paz: more than 20 people died in that accident with another 30 injured.
