Colombian politician Digenes Quintero among 15 killed in plane crash

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.Satena, the state-owned airline that operated the flight, said local officials in 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.”Colombia’s Transportation Ministry later released a statement saying that “once the aircraft was located on site, authorities regrettably confirmed that there were no survivors.”The aircraft, which has a registration number of HK4709, took off at 11:42 a.m.local time from the airport in Cúcuta, the department’s capital, bound for Ocaña, a municipality surrounded by mountains, on a flight that typically lasts about 40 minutes.The aircraft’s final contact with air traffic control came minutes after takeoff, according to a statement released by Satena.Officials did not provide a cause for the crash, but said there would be an investigation.The small plane was carrying two crew members and 13 passengers, including Diógenes Quintero, 36, a member of the House of Representatives for Catatumbo, the airline said.

Carlos Salcedo, a social leader who was running for Congress, was also among the victims.Quintero was a renowned human rights defender in the troubled border region with Venezuela, where he was from and where the accident occurred.A lawyer by profession, he was elected in 2022 as one of 16 representatives in the lower chamber to represent the more than 9 million victims of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict.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.His party, the U Party, expressed their remorse for his death and said he was “a leader committed to his region, with a firm vocation for service.”Colombian P...