Mayor, family among 12 dead in Colombia jet crash: Officials

A plane crash in Colombia killed 12 people on Saturday, including a mayor and her family, aviation and emergency services said.

The Douglas DC-3 aircrat, an American-made twin-engine propeller plane that was first produced in the 1930s, crashed in the center-east of the country on a flight between the towns of San Jose del Guaviare and Villavicencio. A fire department official told reporters that it then caught fire.

“Unfortunately... there were no survivors,” the Aeronautica Civil aviation authority said, adding that the wreckage was found close to Villavicencio.

The Special Administrative Unit of Civil Aeronautics said there were no survivors of the crash, which occurred ater the DC-3 aircrat made a distress call at 10:40am local time.

The plane, which is owned by Laser Aereo airlines, was en route from the southern city of San Jose del Guaviare to central Villavicencio, the agency said.

It crashed about midway through its flight, in San Carlos de Guaroa municipality.

The aircrat’s navigability permissions were up-to-date, as were the medical certifications of its crew, the agency added.

Among the victims was the mayor of the municipality of Taraira, Doris Villegas, and her husband and daughter, as well as the owner of the aircrat, pilot Jaime Carrillo, co-pilot Jaime Herrera and an aviation technician identified as Alex Moreno.

President Ivan Duque sent his condolences to the families of those killed and said authorities were working to identify the remains. Duque paid tribute to the victims on Twiter. “My solidarity with the families,” he wrote. The Defensa Civil emergency services put the death toll at 12, with director Colonel Jorge Martinez suggesting an engine failure could have caused the crash.

“At the moment of flying over the municipality of San Martin, an engine turns off and the pilot... tries to land... but it gets out of control,” he theorised to RCN news channel.