BOGOTA — Colombian officials held a ceremony Friday in Bogota to honor 69 security force members killed when a military transport plane crashed in the Amazon. Photographs of the 69 deceased were arranged before the altar of a church as survivors and officials gathered to pay respects.

The Colombian Aerospace Force C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed Monday shortly after takeoff from Puerto Leguizamo in the Colombian Amazon. The aircraft carried 126 members of the security forces, of whom 57 survived and 69 were killed.

During the ceremony, crash survivors offered prayers before the photos of their deceased colleagues. Some survivors sat in wheelchairs attended by nurses, while others wore bandages on their arms or walked with difficulty.

"We are deeply pained by what has happened, because when a soldier or a police officer falls, a part of our military family is broken," said Gen. Hugo Alejandro López, commander of the Military Forces.

A priest read aloud the names of the deceased one by one during the service. "They offered their lives in service to the homeland," the priest said.

Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez offered condolences to the families of the deceased and assured them they would have the institution's full support. "For some, it would be the last flight they would ever take in this world — one that would carry them toward the eternal flight. For others — those who survived — it was, in a sense, being born again," Sánchez said.

Colombia observed three days of national mourning for the crash. Authorities are investigating the cause of the accident and have ruled out the possibility that an armed attack by illegal groups caused it. Investigators are analyzing the condition of the aircraft, the runway and the crew. The aircraft was manufactured in 1983 and donated by the U.S. in 2020.