On 23rd March, a military aircraft crashed in the south of the country resulting in the killing of 69 members of the Colombian security forces.

On Wednesday, the military reported that it had completed search and rescue missions.

The Hercules C-130 also crashed, and 57 individuals were injured when the plane crashed soon after departure at the Colombia-Peru boundary. 

Locals dragged many to the burning garbage and took them to the hospital, where they strapped them to the back of their motorbikes.

A case is being investigated as to the cause of the accident.

The number of the transport plane being 126, the Colombian armed forces announced on Wednesday, revising the number of the transport to 128 on board the plane.

The aircraft had been flying between the towns of Puerto Leguizamo and Puerto Asís.

Cambodian President Gustavo Petro, in a series of social media posts, was seen to attribute the accident to old military equipment.

For example, discussing the victims, but not referring directly to the plane of Hercules, he wrote: “This scrap of metal was purchased in 2020 and fell, so why?”

He previously pinned the blame on bureaucratic issues as the reason behind his efforts to modernise the defence equipment and aircraft being stalled.

“I will not tolerate any more delays; the lives of our youths are involved,” he wrote.

The mobile phone captures that had been posted on social media showed the plane losing altitude soon after taking off, then a massive column of smoke that emanated from the crash scene, after which there were explosions.

The defence minister of Colombia explained that the noise was the ammunition on board blowing up in the fire.

He also mentioned that there was no sign that the plane was attacked by any of the military factions that are operating in the Putumayo region.

A local farmer, as reported by AFP news agency, had reported that he heard a loud bang and then the Hercules crashed into trees around his house. Noé Mota said: “I heard an explosion, and when I looked up, the plane passed just over the house on my plot.”

The armed forces reported the latest update that 113 army members, two policemen and 11 crew members were on board the plane.

This crash is not the first involving a Hercules C-130 in a fatal crash within the same few months.

A Hercules C-130, which was transporting a batch of banknotes on board its flight on 27 February to the Bolivian airport, missed the landing runway and came to rest in traffic on a highway next to the airport.

There were 24 victims who were murdered in that attack.