The accident of a military plane in the south of the Philippines has left at least 31 dead and 54 injured, while rescue teams search for another 17 people who remain missing among the charred remains of the device.
More information
Duterte signs anti-terrorism law that puts freedom of expression at risk in the Philippines
The Secretary of Defense, Delfin Lorenzana, said in a brief statement to the media that at least 102 people were traveling on the plane, including three pilots and five crew members.
At least two of the fatalities are civilians, while the rest of the deceased are soldiers, authorities said in an update late in the afternoon.
Among the survivors, 17 of whom were admitted to a military hospital in the region, there are also 4 civilians.
The ship, a four-engine C-130 Hercules, was carrying out the landing maneuver at an airfield on the island of Jolo when the runway was passed and could not regain altitude around 11.30 a.m. local time (4.30 on the Peninsula) , according to the general commander of the Philippine Air Forces, Cirilito Sobejana.
"By losing the runway [the plane] tried to regain power, but was unsuccessful and suffered an accident," said Sobejada in a statement, in which he specified that the aircraft departed from a base in Cagayán de Oro, in the island of Mindanado.
Inside the apparatus were soldiers who mostly had just graduated and were going to be deployed in a battalion that fights against various Islamic extremist groups that take refuge in the remote archipelago of Jolo, in the southwest of the Philippines.
The incident caused a thick cloud of black smoke, according to videos and photos posted on social media by witnesses, as the flames devoured part of the damaged device.
The authorities quickly deployed an emergency device to search for survivors and recover the bodies of the deceased among the wreckage of the aircraft.
"We are doing everything we can to rescue the remaining passengers," Sobejana said.
The survivors have been transferred to a military hospital in the city of Busbus, authorities said.
In addition, the authorities have opened an investigation to try to determine the causes of the incident.
Another Army accident
The accident once again puts the ancient and poorly maintained arsenal of the Philippine Army in the spotlight, which generally acquires second and even third-hand planes and helicopters.
The crashed C-130 was delivered to the Philippines earlier this year through a military assistance agreement with the United States, which operated the ship between 1988 and 2016 and spent the last few years in a hangar on a US base.
In late June, six people lost their lives when an S-70i Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training mission near the Clark Air Force Base, north of Manila.
The helicopter was one of 16 acquired in 2019 and delivered last November.
As a result of this incident, the Secretary of Defense ordered the entire Black Hawk fleet to be grounded temporarily while a review proceeded.
In January, a UH-1H helicopter used in the Vietnam War and later renovated suffered an accident during a supply mission in the south of the country, leaving eight soldiers dead.
The Government pledged in 2018 to allocate more than 6,000 million dollars (more than 5,000 million euros) to update the outdated arsenal of the Army.