LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — A cargo plane carrying cash crashed near Bolivia’s capital on Friday, damaging about a dozen vehicles on a highway and scattering banknotes, killing at least 15 people and injuring many others, an official said.
Defense Minister Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 aircraft, which was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency, “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in the city of El Alto, adjacent to the capital La Paz, before landing in a nearby field. Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames that engulfed the plane.
Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but he did not clarify whether the dead were on the plane or in cars on a nearby highway.
Salinas did not specify how many people died and said the cause of the crash was under investigation.
Two of the plane’s six crew members were still missing as of late Friday, Bolivian Air Force Gen. Sergio Lora said, adding that the plane arrived from the eastern city of Santa Cruz.
Images on social media showed wreckage, destroyed cars and bodies strewn on the road. According to Tovar, at least 15 vehicles were damaged.
The plane, belonging to the Bolivian air force, was transporting money to La Paz, and images on social media showed people scrambling to collect banknotes scattered at the crash site while police in riot gear tried to disperse them.
Tovar said rescue efforts were hampered by hundreds of people trying to collect the spilled banknotes.
According to official reports, more than 500 soldiers and 100 police took control of the area to disperse the mob. Police and military personnel burned the boxes in the presence of central bank governor David Espinoza, who said the notes had “no legal value because they never entered circulation” without clarifying what that meant.
Espinoza did not specify the amount of the shipment, but he said the bills arrived in Santa Cruz from abroad.
Authorities temporarily halted all flights in and out of the terminal.
