El Alto Aviation Disaster: Military Cargo Plane Veers Off Runway Into Busy Highway, Killing 24

El Alto, Bolivia—A catastrophic runway excursion involving a Bolivian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport plane killed 24 people and injured dozens more after the heavy aircraft veered off the tarmac and ploughed directly into a heavily congested highway in the city of El Alto. The military transporter, operating under registration FAB-81, was completing a domestic flight from Viru Viru International Airport in Santa Cruz de la Sierra when it attempted to land at El Alto International Airport during an intense, blinding hailstorm accompanied by severe lightning. Unable to decelerate on the slick, high-altitude runway, the aircraft overshot the tarmac perimeter, breached the boundary fence, and slammed into multiple civilian vehicles along Avenida Costanera.

The massive turboprop aircraft careened across the active multi-lane thoroughfare, dragging and crushing fifteen passenger cars and small commercial transit vans before finally coming to a rest in an adjacent open field. Fuel tanks ruptured upon the initial impact with the highway infrastructure, igniting a fierce firestorm that instantly swallowed trapped vehicles and sent a thick column of black smoke into the stormy Andean sky. Emergency response units, municipal firefighters, and military personnel mobilized under hazardous weather conditions to suppress the intense blaze and initiate a massive urban rescue operation.

Civilian and military medical teams scrambled to transport over thirty survivors to local regional hospitals, where several individuals remain in critical condition with severe polytrauma and extensive thermal burns. Local police authorities and the homicide division in El Alto subsequently confirmed that the final death toll had risen to 24 individuals, a figure that includes military personnel aboard the aircraft as well as numerous motorists and commuters who were trapped inside their crushed vehicles on the highway. Rescue operations were severely complicated by the sheer structural distortion of the fused metallic wreckage.

Massive civil unrest erupted at the crash site shortly after the impact when it was discovered that the military cargo aircraft was transporting 18 tons of newly printed, unissued Bolivian banknotes on behalf of the Central Bank of Bolivia. Thousands of onlookers and local residents swarmed the burning debris field, attempting to collect heaps of scattered currency that had been blasted out of the aircraft's ruptured cargo hold. Security forces were forced to deploy tear gas, deploy water hoses, and erect a massive security cordon to push back crowds and looters, resulting in the arrest of 49 individuals for vandalism.

To quell the escalating tension and prevent the illicit distribution of the currency, Ministry of Defense officials ordered security personnel to systematically burn the remaining uncollected banknotes directly at the scene. Authorities released urgent public notices clarifying that the transported money possessed no legal value or purchasing power because it lacked official serial numbers, warning that the collection or possession of these notes constitutes a serious federal crime. This decision sparked intense anger and protests among low-income El Alto residents, who publicly condemned the state's destruction of the funds amid severe regional poverty.

Preliminary aviation safety investigations are focusing on the extreme meteorological variables present during the landing phase, as well as the unique aerodynamic challenges of operating at El Alto International Airport—the highest commercial international airport in the world outside of China, situated at an altitude of over 4,000 meters. Air traffic control logs indicate that the flight crew executed an emergency turning maneuver seconds before the excursion to avoid crashing directly into a high-density cluster of approximately forty residential buildings situated near the western end of the runway, preventing an even larger structural catastrophe.

The remains of the 24 deceased victims were carefully retrieved from the scorched crash corridor and transferred to the central mortuary facility for formal forensic identification and post-mortem review. The Ministry of Defense announced that formal insurance mechanisms would fully reimburse the Central Bank for the lost cargo, while the national administration pledged to provide direct financial compensation to the families of the deceased civilian motorists.

Heavy-duty military cranes and specialized recovery flatbeds arrived at Avenida Costanera to initiate the complex task of dismantling and hauling away the charred fuselage sections of the Hercules transporter. Flight operations at the international airport remained heavily restricted for several hours as technical teams inspected the runway threshold for structural damage, while municipal engineers began evaluating the extensive destruction dealt to the highway’s surface and electrical layout.