A Colombian military C-130 Hercules plane carrying 124 soldiers crashed shortly after takeoff near Puerto Leguízamo, on the country’s southern border, killing at least 66 people and injuring dozens.
Air Force Commander Carlos Fernando Silva Rueda said 114 army personnel and 11 crew members were on board, according to BBC.
The US-made Lockheed Martin aircraft, used for transporting troops, came down in Putumayo province in one of the deadliest accidents in recent history for Colombia’s Air Force.
Defence Minister Pedro Sánchez said the crash occurred as the plane lifted off from Puerto Leguízamo, deep in Colombia’s Amazon region bordering Peru.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the incident as a “horrific accident that should never have happened.”
In a social media post, he said he had tried for years to renew the military fleet but was blocked by “bureaucratic difficulties,” adding, “If the civil or military administrative officials are not up to this challenge, they must be removed.”
Hercules C-130 planes were first launched in the 1950s, with Colombia acquiring its first models in the late 1960s.
Some older C-130s have been modernised with surplus US models.
The aircraft are frequently used to transport troops as part of operations in Colombia’s six-decade-long internal conflict, which has claimed more than 450,000 lives.
At the end of February, another Hercules C-130 belonging to the Bolivian air force crashed in El Alto, killing more than 20 people and injuring 30, narrowly missing a residential block.