A Colombian Air Force C-130 Hercules transport plane carrying 128 people mostly soldiers being deployed to one of South America’s most dangerous conflict zones crashed and burst into flames Monday morning just seconds after lifting off from a remote jungle airstrip in southern Colombia, killing at least 66 people and leaving dozens more wounded in what has become the deadliest military aviation disaster in the country’s history.
Flames and thick black smoke rose from the wreckage of the C-130 Hercules as it crashed during takeoff from Puerto Leguizamo, a small, isolated municipality deep in the Amazonian province of Putumayo, near Colombia’s southern borders with both Peru and Ecuador.
Among those killed were six members of Colombia’s Air Force, 58 soldiers from the National Army, and two officers from the National Police. Four soldiers remain unaccounted for, with search teams combing the dense jungle floor for survivors. One soldier miraculously escaped the crash without injury, while 57 military personnel were rescued and evacuated from the wreckage.
The crash has plunged Colombia into national mourning and ignited a fierce political debate about the state of the country’s military equipment a debate that President Gustavo Petro has entered with characteristic directness and controversy.
The sequence of events was both rapid and catastrophic. Air force commander Carlos Fernando Silva said details of the crash were not yet fully known, “except that the plane had a problem and went down about two kilometres from the airport.”
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. Video geolocated by CNN shows the C-130 Hercules taking off from Colombia’s Caucaya Airport before it gradually descends going into a steep, irreversible dive in the seconds after departure.
Defence Minister Pedro Sánchez said the plane hit the ground just 1.5 kilometres away from where it took off, leading to the detonation of ammunition on board and setting the aircraft ablaze. The aircraft broke into pieces on impact and caught fire, strewing burning wreckage across the jungle floor.
The scene that greeted first responders was one of chaos, fire, and desperation. Local residents were the first to reach the crash site, with videos showing wounded soldiers being transported to hospitals on the backs of motorcycles and improvised vehicles — the only means available in one of Colombia’s most remote communities.
Deputy Mayor Carlos Claros confirmed in a video on social media that the bodies of the victims were taken to the small town’s morgue, and that the only two clinics in town were overwhelmed treating the injured. Two military aircraft equipped with 74 hospital beds were dispatched to the area to evacuate the most critically wounded to hospitals in the capital Bogotá and other major cities.
The human story behind the numbers is one of young men and women serving in one of the world’s longest-running and most brutal internal conflicts.
The plane was carrying 128 people in total: 115 were from the Army, 11 were crew members, and two were officers from the National Police. They were being transported to Puerto Leguizamo a remote frontier town on the edge of the Amazon as part of Colombia’s military operations in Putumayo, a province that has long been a stronghold of guerrilla groups, drug trafficking networks, and illegal armed actors.
C-130 Hercules aircraft 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. For many of the soldiers on board, Monday’s flight would have been a routine deployment to one of the most dangerous postings in South America. None of them could have known it would be their last.
At the centre of the investigation now is the aircraft itself and the circumstances of its maintenance history.
Flight data confirms the plane was a C-130H Hercules, an older model of the C-130 series that first entered service in March 1965, according to manufacturer Lockheed Martin. The plane had been donated to the Colombian Air Force by the United States Air Force in September 2020, and three years later it underwent a full engine overhaul, in which its engines were inspected and key components replaced.
That overhaul has become a point of critical scrutiny. Colombian aviation expert and military analyst Erich Saumeth said: “I don’t think this plane crashed because of a lack of good parts.” He added that investigators will need to determine why the four-propeller Hercules’ engines failed so soon after takeoff a question that points more toward operational factors or a sudden technical failure than toward routine maintenance neglect.
Defence Minister Sánchez confirmed the plane was in airworthy condition and the crew was “duly qualified” at the time of the flight, and stressed there were no signs indicating the plane was attacked by rebel groups operating near Puerto Leguizamo.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro moved swiftly to respond to the disaster but his response quickly became as controversial as the crash itself.
Petro said the crash “should never have happened” and lamented what he described as a dangerous lack of modernisation within Colombia’s armed forces, attributing the problem to “bureaucratic difficulties.” He seized on the accident to promote what he called his longtime campaign to modernise planes and other military equipment saying those efforts had been blocked and he thanked the civilian residents who rushed to the crash site to save survivors.
The remarks drew immediate criticism from opposition figures and military families who accused the president of politicising a tragedy before the bodies had even been identified. The debate over military modernisation is real and longstanding in Colombia but the timing of Petro’s intervention, within hours of the crash, has divided the country.
Defence Minister Sánchez took a more measured tone, calling the crash “profoundly painful for the country” and expressing hope that prayers could “relieve some of the pain.”
Monday’s crash did not occur in isolation. It is the latest in a series of devastating aviation accidents that have struck Colombia in just the past three months.
In late January 2026, another aircraft went down near Cúcuta in the northeast, just nine minutes after taking off. All those on board died, including congressman Diógenes Quintero. The back-to-back disasters have heightened public anxiety about the safety of Colombia’s aviation fleet both civilian and military.
Last month, a C-130 belonging to the Bolivian Air Force also crashed in the city of El Alto, barely missing a residential building a reminder that the C-130 Hercules, despite its legendary reliability and decades of distinguished service worldwide, is not immune to catastrophic failure.
Colombian Air Force Commander Fernando Silva confirmed that an investigative team has been dispatched to the crash site to determine the causes of the disaster. The investigation will focus on several key questions: Why did the aircraft’s engines fail within seconds of takeoff? Was there a bird strike or foreign object ingestion? Was there a fuel issue? Did human error play a role? And critically did the wing impact a tree at the end of the runway, as one witness account suggests, or was the aircraft already in distress before that point?
Defence Minister Sánchez confirmed there was no indication of an attack by illegal armed groups ruling out the most alarming possible explanation in a country where guerrilla groups remain active in the region where the crash occurred.
For Colombia, the crash arrives at a moment of profound national exhaustion. The country has been living with armed conflict for over six decades, a war that has claimed more than 450,000 lives. The 66 soldiers who died on Monday were not casualties of combat — they were killed by a mechanical failure before they even reached their deployment. That cruel irony has deepened the grief of a nation whose military families know too well the cost of service.
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The jungle around Puerto Leguizamo is still smouldering. Search teams are still looking for four missing soldiers. And somewhere in the Amazonian province of Putumayo, families across Colombia are waiting by phones and televisions, hoping not to hear their loved one’s name called among the dead.
As of Monday evening, Colombia’s death toll stands at 66. Investigators say that number may yet rise.
