Colombian emergency services continued on Sunday night with the search for a small plane with five people on board, which disappeared while covering the route between Condoto, in the department of Chocó, and Guaymaral airport, in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia.
The last communication report from the aircraft, a Cessna T206 plane belonging to the Colombian Civil Air Patrol and carrying a humanitarian medical mission, was recorded at 09:23 local time (11:23 in Chile), according to the Technical Directorate of Accident Investigation.
After confirming the disappearance of the plane, the Civil Aeronautics and authorities of Chocó confirmed that search efforts are focused in this department, as it was there where it is believed to have crashed, according to the newspaper El Colombiano.
This was acknowledged by Juan Palacios, the mayor of Tadó – one of the municipalities in the region – who in a conversation with the newspaper El Tiempo stated that the aircraft with registration HK4985 “crashed” between Tadocito and Jamaica, a rural area of his municipality.
“It was flying very low, too low”, detailed the local official, confirming that a rescue team has already been deployed to try to locate the plane and its five occupants.
The latter would be the pilot identified as Mehmet Cankaya and the medical staff Perla Costanza Álvarez, Sandy García, María Guzmán, and Yuliza Figueredo, who were returning to the center of the country after completing a health brigade with specialists in the municipality of Condoto.
Shortly before, as reported by the media La República, the air authorities had confirmed the activation of an emergency beacon in the Cerro Tatamá area, in the eponymous national park located between the departments of Chocó, Valle del Cauca, and Risaralda.
In response to the signal, the protocols of the Colombian Search and Rescue Service (SAR) were activated.
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The governor of Chocó, Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi, also confirmed on social media the status of the efforts to locate the aircraft.
“The search is concentrated in the rural area of the municipality of Tadó and authorities and local communities have joined together with rescue teams to strengthen the tracking”, assured the authority, adding that a National Army helicopter was deployed in the area for aerial support.
However, the operation faces difficulties due to geographical conditions and the difficult access to the Tatamá area, reports the media La República.
The Civil Aeronautics coordinates the efforts with the National Police, the Army, and Colombian rescue organizations to mobilize tracking units and rescue personnel working in the area.
At the close of this report, authorities had temporarily suspended the search due to heavy rains and adverse weather conditions in the mountainous Tatamá area.
In response, Gustavo Elías Hincapié, mayor of Condoto, told Noticias Caracol that “so far we do not have the exact location, it has not been possible to reach it, the weather conditions are unfavorable, it is raining in the area.”
“The local rescue organizations and people from nearby communities have been trying, but unfortunately we have not been able to find the exact location of the incident to try to see the condition of the plane and the people,” added Hincapié.
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