Plane crash in Colombia kills 6, including former senator

By Laura Gamba

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - A small plane crashed on Wednesday morning in the central Colombian department of Boyaca, killing six people including a former senator, officials said.

The aircraft departed from the city of Villavicencio at 7:40 a.m. bound for Guaymaral Airport, in Colombia's capital city of Bogota, with five occupants plus the pilot in a Cessna T210N aircraft.

"Preliminary information indicates that all occupants were found lifeless," reported the agency in charge of regulating civil aviation in the country.

The deceased are the pilot Eliodoro Alvarez and the five passengers: Nohora Tovar, Oscar Rodriguez, Felipe Carreno, Guillermo Perez and Dimas Barrero. All of them were leaders of the Democratic Center, the conservative political party that was founded by former president Alvaro Uribe Velez in 2013.

Nohora Tovar, 55, had been a senator between 2014 and 2018 for that party. She had also been Colombia's ambassador to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Felipe Carreno was running for governor of the Meta department in the local regional elections in October.

Former President Alvaro Uribe regretted the news.

"Terrible news about the fatal accident of our colleagues from Meta, Nora Tovar and her husband Guillermo. Pending more information on this tragedy," he said on Twitter.

In a statement, the Democratic Center also lamented the death of its members.

"The greatest tragedy mourns the Democratic Center party with the plane crash that produced the death of our former senator Nohora Tovar, her husband Guillermo Perez, departmental coordinator of the party in Meta, our deputy Dimas Barrero and councilman Oscar Rodríguez, the candidate for governor of Meta doctor Felipe Carreno, and commander Eliodoro Alvarez, pilot of the aircraft."​​​​​​​