A military plane has crashed in the southern Philippines killing at least 29 people, with dozens more pulled alive from the burning wreckage.
The US handed over the Lockheed C-130H Hercules aircraft to the Philippines recently, an announcement on a government website says. (file pic) Photo: Flickr/ WRAIGHT68
The transporter was carrying more than 90 people, mostly troops, when it overshot the runway on Jolo island.
Fifty people were injured and 17 are missing, the military said. A nearby military hospital treated survivors.
A large ball of black smoke was seen above the wreckage of the plane, a Lockheed C130 Hercules.
Pictures of the site published by local media show burning debris in a wooded area close to a number of buildings.
LOOK: A huge plume of smoke can be seen above the crash site of a Philippine military aircraft in Patikul, Sulu on Sunday.
— ABS-CBN News (@ABSCBNNews) July 4, 2021
Refresh this page for updates: https://t.co/ei8hUybqCa
Photo courtesy of Pondohan TV/Facebook pic.twitter.com/PXjkOJ8fbD
The plane, which came down at 11:30am (local time) a few kilometres from the town of Jolo, was carrying troops from Cagayan de Oro, on the southern island of Mindanao.
"It missed the runway, trying to regain power but it didn't make it," armed forces chief Gen Sobejana told reporters.
"We are currently attending to the survivors who were immediately brought to the 11th Infantry Division station hospital in Busbus, Jolo, Sulu," Sobejana told Reuters.
The island is about 950km south of the capital, Manila.
Two of those killed and four of the injured were civilians on the ground, the defence ministry said.
A military spokesman, Colonel Edgard Arevalo, said there was no indication of any attack on the plane, but that a crash investigation had not begun and efforts were focused on rescue and treatment.
The soldiers were part of the military's stepped-up presence in the southern Philippines to combat Islamist militants such as the Abu Sayyaf group.
Many of those on board had only recently completed basic military training, AFP reports.
The Lockheed C-130H Hercules aircraft, registration 5125, had only arrived in the Philippines recently.
It was one of two aircraft granted by the US government through the Defence Security Cooperation Agency, according to a government website announcement in January. It quoted an air force spokesman as saying the aircraft would provide enhanced capability for heavy airlift missions.
The website C-130.net said the plane that crashed had first flown in 1988. The model is a workhorse for armed forces around the world.
The Philippines armed forces have had a patchy air safety record. Last month a Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training mission, killing six people.
A Philippines Air Force C-130 crash in 1993 killed 30 people. A 2008 crash by the civilian variant of the Lockheed plane flown by the Philippines Air Force killed 11 people, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
In the country's worst plane crash, an Air Philippines Boeing 737 crashed in 2000, killing 131 people.
- Reuters / BBC
