Four dead and three injured in a helicopter crash

Four dead and three injured The accident of a helicopter of the Colombian army in the area of ​​Darién, the natural border with Panama, happened this Monday, official sources from both countries reported.

Colombian military sources reported the death of four people in the device, one Army UH-60 Black Hawk “which carried out the air movement of internal cargo to the binational military base of Cuti, Unguía, in Chocó.”

Dead soldiers, the largest, were found at the scene of the accident Karol Felipe García Murillo, the pilot who commanded the plane; captain Darío Bernal Toloza; Lieutenant Jhon Elder Barbosa Cruz, pilot, and First Sergeant Javier Elías Reino, crew chiefaccording to Colombian military sources.

In Panama, official sources told EFE that border and naval police officers rescued three people in the device alive, while the other four remained in the helicopter “apparently lifeless”.

“Two helicopters were mobilized to continue the mobilization of the injured,” whose condition was not specified, “to be taken to the heliport of Salvador Mayor Córdoba del Senan Air Base in Nicanor and later to Panama City,” the statement said. of the Panamanian Ministry of Public Security.

The injured were identified as Deputy First Sergeant Jhonatan del Río, First Corporal Alejandro Gutiérrez Trejos and professional soldier Galindo Suárez Prada by the Colombian military authorities, who for their part reported that they were evacuated to a specialized medical center in the municipality of Apartadó, Antioquia.

The aircraft crashed “approximately one kilometer from the Binational Surveillance Post, located in La Olla, Darién province,” on the border with the South American country, while performing a “personnel assistance mission,” the ministry said in a statement. security of Panama.

Minister of Security of Panama, Juan Manuel Pinohe expressed “complete solidarity with the brotherly country, and especially with the Colombian army, which is being provided with all possible cooperation”, according to the press release.