The aircraft “covered the Medellín route with the municipality of Pizarro in the department of Chocó (west), it is a flight of about 25 minutes, we have reports of six passengers and two crew members deceased,” Daniel Quintero, mayor of the province, told the media. city of almost 3 million inhabitants.
One of the dead is the manager of the San Germán Express Group, which operated the wrecked ship. No victims have yet been registered in the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Belén Rosales where the accident occurred.
“I immediately see something sudden, like a shadow (…) immediately (after) it went up like a five-meter flare from the roof of the house upwards and then a condensed cloud of black smoke,” Jorge Armando Figueroa told AFP. neighbor of the place where the plane fell.
Videos released by the mayor’s office of the second most populous city in Colombia show firefighters putting out the fire and a group of rescuers removing rubble from a partially destroyed building.
According to Quintero, “the plane broke into three parts” and “six buildings were hit,” for which reason the authorities carry out a “structural analysis” to determine the risk of collapse in the affected homes.
The country’s aeronautical authority indicated in a statement that a team of investigators “is traveling to the scene to collect evidence to determine the causes of the accident.”
– “Terrifying” –
Earlier the mayor of Medellín had reported the collision on Twitter, with a text that was accompanied by a video in which a column of black smoke is seen coming out in the middle of houses and buildings.
“This plane at the time of takeoff shows an engine failure, the pilot unfortunately is not able to keep the plane in flight and it collides in this sector” of the west of the city, detailed Daniel Quintero dressed in a yellow helmet and vest at the scene of the accident.
The area where the plane fell is close to the Olaya Herrera airport, the second largest in the city, mainly used to cover local routes. Twelve flights, between departures and arrivals, have been canceled due to the accident, according to the airport.
“That was terrifying. I was taking a shower and what I felt was that something heavy fell (…) that was panic,” said Elena Mejía, a resident of Belén Rosales.
In 2016, a plane carrying the Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense crashed in the mountains near Medellín, killing 71 of the 77 people on board.
The incident occurred when the aircraft, which left Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia, was about to land at the Colombian international airport in Medellín, where the team was to play the Copa Sudamericana final against local team Atlético Nacional.
Among the victims, 19 Chapecoense players and 14 from the technical commission died.
The department of Chocó, where the plane was headed this Monday, is a jungle area on the Pacific coast that is difficult to access by road.
Medellín is the second most visited city by tourists in Colombia, behind Bogotá and ahead of the Caribbean Cartagena.
