On April 8, a Douglas DC-3 belonging to Colombian operator Aliansa Aerolíneas Andinas was seriously damaged when it left the runway on landing.San Felipe According to Colombian weekly news magazine Semana, the 79-year-old DC-3, registered HK-5016, was carrying six passengers and crew from Inírida to San Felipe, a distance of around 150 miles.San Felipe is a remote region around 500 miles from Colombia's capital Bogota and near the border with Venezuela and Brazil. The region relies heavily on air transport for both passenger and cargo flights.

What actually happened to the veteran DC-3?

Video footage posted to Twitter shows the aircraft suddenly turning sharply left and off the runway. It goes severely nose down on the side of the runway, almost tipping over.

A statement from Colombia's civil aviation authority said:

"Today, in the afternoon, a DC-3 aircraft with registration HK5016 went off the runway at San Felipe de Guainía airport. The Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Technical Directorate initiates the investigations. The crew and passengers are unharmed."

Semana says that a preliminary report from the civil aviation authority points to a possible failure in one of the aircraft's tires, which could have deflated or exploded during landing. A departmental official, named as Neyder Rentería, is quoted as saying:

"Initially they tell me it was due to a puncture, but it is not entirely clear what happened."

The aircraft suffered extensive damage to the underside of the forward fuselage and propeller blades, while the right-hand main landing gear collapsed.

Photos from the site show the left-hand main gear tire had punctured, supporting the theory that tire damage was the cause of the accident.

The Aliansa website says this DC-3 is powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-65AR turboprop engines. The PT6A-65AR is a larger variant of the P&W PT6A turboprop engine, with a maximum continuous power of 1173 SHP

Not the first time an Aliansa DC-3 has suffered

A second video posted to Twitter shows the arrival of an ambulance and the accident site, with the aircraft marooned amongst the vegetation. A crew member is seen jumping off the aircraft via the rear door.

Aliansa was founded in 1989, 46 years after the accident aircraft first flew, and specializes in using DC-3s for cargo and passenger flights in Colombia.

In 2021, another DC-3 flown by Aliansa crashed, killing all three people onboard.

In that accident, the aircraft lost radar contact five minutes into a training flight from Vanguardia de Villavicencio airport, around 80 miles from Bogota.