The accident of the Hercules C-130 aircraft of the Fuerza Aeroespacial Colombiana (FAC), which left 70 dead and more than 50 injured, unleashed a series of conflicts between President Gustavo Petro and opposition sectors, who blame each other for the event. The president maintains that the aircraft was scrap that his predecessor and political opponent Ivan Duque received as a donation, while his critics argue that it did not receive maintenance under this government.
What was least expected was that the tragedy would also trigger a kind of friendly fire between the head of state and the commander of the FAC, General Carlos Silva. In response to Petro’s statements, according to which “an Army cannot defend even its people with scrap gifts,” made without having a report that officially establishes the causes of the disaster, General Silva responded.
It happened during the most recent cabinet meeting, last Tuesday, in which General Silva delivered a complete report on the remaining service life of the aircraft, despite the fact that it had already been in service for many years: “Year of manufacture, 1983; acquired by Colombia in 2020. It arrived with a total of 20,294 hours available to fly. That means that its structure by factory design still allows it to fly all those hours. Obviously, an aircraft, like any aircraft on the planet, has to be subjected to certain maintenance periods,” he said.
“The plane can fly 40 more years”
“As soon as the plane arrived, which arrived flying with a North American crew, it was flown because it was already due for a major inspection known as PDM (Program Depot Maintenance),” continued the FAC commander. “In Colombia we have PDM, in Madrid [Cundinamarca]. A PDM of this plane takes between one year and a year and a half. In the PDM the plane is completely taken apart and the parts that have already completed their service life are replaced. They must be acquired. The PDM of this plane cost three million dollars.”
“After a year and a half the plane comes out and begins to fly,” Silva added, and to close he made some blunt calculations that contradict President Petro’s idea that the aircraft was scrap. “Between 2021 and 2024 [the Hercules C-130] flew 345 hours; in 2025 it flew 537 and this year it had flown 155. A plane of this type flies about 500 hours annually. So we can divide the 20,000 hours it still has available by 500 and it gives us that the plane can still fly 40 more years.”
The president did not respond immediately. He let some time pass before expressing himself through his preferred platform: the social network X, where he wrote: “I do not agree either with the interpretation or with the explanations,” and then went on to give his reasons, without providing technical evidence.
- The experience of the crew that was on the plane, doubled in number, is immense and reduces the probability of human error.
- There is no sign of attack.
- It was not a runway problem.
- Therefore they conclude that the cause is unknown. The correct answer is: the probability of the age of the plane increases.
And he concluded: “They want to evade the responsibility of the Duque government. I will request the list of officers and public officials who have responsibility in the acquisition and maintenance of the aircraft.”
The president continues to hold his thesis without the investigations into the true causes of the disaster having concluded, the most serious military air tragedy in the history of Colombia.