At least 15 people diedsix were injured and 15 vehicles were affected by the accident that occurred this Friday military cargo plane when trying to land on the El Alto international airportthe second most populated city in Bolivia, reported the National Fire Department.
The national director of Firefighters, Colonel Pavel Tovar, told the private channel Unitel that they are “like 15 vehicles affected“, about “15 people died” and at least a few “six injured who have been evacuated to different health centers after the accident that occurred this afternoon near El Alto.
An official source told Efe that the plane, a Hercules of the Bolivian Air Force (FAB), touched down and was unable to brake, presumably because the runway was icy due to a hailstorm that fell earlier in El Alto, so it ended up outside the airport perimeter, with the effects mentioned by Tovar.
Images of the plane crash in El Alto. Some people took money from the accident scene, according to social media reports. Video TT / Adolfo Calcina pic.twitter.com/SwqTSSp9dE
— ERBOL (@ErbolDigital) February 27, 2026
The people who were at the scene reported in videos broadcast on social networks that they were bills that were transported on the plane scattered on the sitewhile local media indicated that it is money from the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB).
Several people tried to approach the place to collect the bills, so first the firefighters had to spray them with water and even later, when the Police arrived, they had to use tear gas to disperse people.
Military personnel were also deployed to support the Police in protecting the place.
Tovar denounced that the firefighters were attacked by people who was trying to enter the site of the accident and asked the population of El Alto not to do so, since “there is no type of value that they can acquire” at the site.
The state airline Boliviana de Aviación (BoA) reported in a statement that the El Alto airport, which serves La Paz, “is temporarily closed by order of the airport authority due to an incident recorded with an aircraft on the runway” that does not belong to that company.
BoA noted that, although the situation is “completely unrelated” to its operations, the temporary closure of the airport “could generate delays, rescheduling or cancellations” in some of its flights to and from La Paz “until normal conditions are restored” at the airport terminal.
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