There was a plane crash in the north of Colombia: a plane Beechcraft 1900 (a twin-engine turboprop) of the Colombian state company Satena crashed while operating a regional route. Unfortunately, all 15 people on board the flight NSE 8849 – 13 passengers and 2 crew members – lost their lives: among them, also a deputy candidate in the legislative elections next March.
According to initial reconstructions provided by the Colombian authorities, the aircraft took off at 11.42am yesterday January 28th (local time, 5.42pm in Italy) fromairport Camila Daza by Cucuta and it was headed to Ocanawhere it was supposed to land around 12:00. THE’last contact with air control, however, it dates back to 11.5412 minutes after departure, as also visible in video below Flightradar.
The remains of the aircraft were found only late in the evening: Colombia’s transport minister confirmed that the plane was crashed in a rural area within the municipality of La Playa de Belén, a mountainous region on the border with Venezuela and where armed groups of the National Liberation Army still operate today (ELN) and the dissidents of the former guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).
At the moment, the causes of the accident have not yet been clarified by the authorities, who deployed air and ground rescue teams around the area where the last contact had been recorded. However, the Satena company announced that, after losing contact with air traffic control, the aircraft did not activate the emergency locator transmitter (ELT, Emergency Locator Transmitter), a device capable of reporting the position of the vehicle in the event of an accident or a forced landing.
