A cargo aircraft carrying cash crashed in the vicinity of Bolivia’s capital, resulting in a toll of at least 15 fatalities and several injuries, as well as causing damage to vehicles along a nearby highway and scattering banknotes on the ground, a government official disclosed.
According to Defense Minister Marcelo Salinas, the Hercules C-130 plane was in the process of transporting freshly printed Bolivian currency when it veered off the runway upon landing at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before coming to a halt in an adjacent field. Firefighters successfully extinguished the flames that had engulfed the aircraft.
Fire chief Pavel Tovar reported that a minimum of 15 individuals lost their lives, although it was not specified whether the deceased were passengers on the plane or occupants of the damaged vehicles on the nearby roadway.
Salinas refrained from providing a precise figure on the number of casualties from the crash and indicated that an investigation into the cause was underway.
Bolivian Air Force General Sergio Lora revealed that as of late Friday, two members of the plane’s six-person crew remained unaccounted for. The aircraft had been en route from the city of Santa Cruz in the east.
Social media imagery depicted wreckage from the aircraft, destroyed automobiles, and bodies strewn along the road. Tovar noted that approximately 15 vehicles sustained damage.
The aircraft, which belonged to the Bolivian air force, was en route to La Paz with cash on board. Footage circulating on social media captured individuals rushing to gather the banknotes scattered at the crash site, while law enforcement officers in riot gear attempted to disperse the crowd.
The presence of hundreds of individuals attempting to retrieve the scattered banknotes impeded the ongoing rescue operations, as per Tovar’s assessment.
Official sources reported that over 500 soldiers and 100 police officers were deployed to the area to manage the situation. Law enforcement and military personnel incinerated the cash containers in the presence of Central Bank President David Espinoza, who declared that the banknotes “hold no legal value as they were never in circulation,” without elaborating on the statement’s significance.
Espinoza refrained from disclosing the sum of money being transported but mentioned that the banknotes had arrived in Santa Cruz from overseas. As a precautionary measure, authorities temporarily halted all flights to and from the terminal.
