BOGOTA, March 23 (Reuters) – Colombia’s defense ministry said on Monday a Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130 plane crashed on take-off in the south of the country, with local outlet BluRadio reporting 110 soldiers were traveling on board.
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said the accident happened as the plane was taking off from Puerto Leguizamo, deep in Colombia’s southern Amazon region on the border with Peru, as it transported troops.
“The exact number of victims and the causes of the crash have not yet been determined,” he said.
Two military sources told Reuters 57 people had been evacuated alive from the wreckage.
BluRadio cited authorities as saying 110 soldiers were on board, and the crash took place just 3 km (2 miles) from an urban center. Footage it shared from the scene showed thick plumes of smoke rising from the wreckage.
U.S. defense 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 modernized some older C-130s with newer models sent from the U.S. under a law that allows for the transfer of used or surplus military equipment.
Details of the plane involved in the accident were not immediately available.
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.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta, Iñigo Alexander and Sarah Morland; Editing by Gabriel Araujo, Julia Symmes Cobb, Chris Reese and Deepa Babington)
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