{"id":440491,"date":"2026-01-29T08:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/440491\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T08:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:56:10","slug":"small-plane-crash-in-colombia-kills-15-including-congressman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/440491\/","title":{"rendered":"Small plane crash in Colombia kills 15, including congressman"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A small plane crashed Wednesday in a rural area of Norte de Santander province in northeast Colombia, killing all 15 people on board, including a member of congress, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Satena, the state-owned airline that operated the flight, said officials from the community of Curasica notified authorities about where the plane had gone down and a rescue team was deployed to “assess the condition of the passengers.”<\/p>\n

Colombia’s Transportation Ministry later released a statement saying that once the aircraft was located, “authorities regrettably confirmed that there were no survivors.”<\/p>\n

The aircraft took off at 11:42 a.m. local time from the airport in Cucuta, where the department is located, bound for Ocana, a municipality surrounded by mountains. The flight typically lasts about 40 minutes.<\/p>\n

Cause of crash not yet known<\/p>\n

The aircraft’s final contact with air traffic control came minutes after takeoff, according to a statement released by Satena.<\/p>\n

Officials did not provide a cause for the crash, but said there would be an investigation.<\/p>\n

The small plane was carrying two crew members and 13 passengers, including Diog\u00e8nes Quintero, 36, a member of the House of Representatives for Catatumbo, the airline said.<\/p>\n

Quintero was a renowned human rights defender in the troubled border region with Venezuela, where he was from and where the accident occurred.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Tensions high in Colombia:\"\"<\/p>\n

Tension rises in Colombia after Maduro\u2019s capture <\/p>\n

Uncertainty in Venezuela has crossed into neighbouring Colombia, especially after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Colombian President Gustavo Petro could face U.S. action following the capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. <\/p>\n

A lawyer by profession, Quintero was elected in 2022 as one of 16 representatives in the lower chamber to represent the more than nine million victims of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. <\/p>\n

The seats were created as part of a landmark 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the country’s largest guerrilla group known as the FARC.<\/p>\n

Quintero’s U Party expressed remorse for his death in a statement and said he was “a leader committed to his region, with a firm vocation for service.” <\/p>\n

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said via social media: “I am deeply saddened by these deaths. My heartfelt condolences to their families. May they rest in peace.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-440491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}