Heist attempt at Chile's Santiago airport leaves Delta airline's plane damaged with bullets

An airport shootout took place at Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport, in Santiago, the capital city of Chile.

The shootout took place in an effort to stop robbers from conducting a heist of over USD 32 million in cash, which they planned to rob from a plane. In the exercise, a security officer and a robber died.

As revealed by Interior Subsecretary Manuel Monsalve, around 10 highly-armoured robbers entered the airport premises by skirting security measures of the Arturo Merino Benitez International airport’s runway to steal the cash from a Latam Airlines’ plane while it was being shifted into an armoured truck.

Delta Air Lines A350 tail damaged by several bullets during a failed robbery at Santiago International Airport in Chile.

There was a shootout between the would-be robbers and security officials that killed an employee of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, or DGAC, as well as an alleged assailant.

The other robbers fled. Two burned vehicles were later found nearby.

Video posted on social media appeared to show bullet holes in a Delta plane that was parked next to the Latam aircraft that was targeted. 

Another video appears to show a moment in the shootout during which a lot of gunshots can be heard.

The attempted heist targeted the USD 32.5 million that were set to be transferred to an armoured truck to then be distributed to several banks in the South American country.

The attempted robbery "will undoubtedly lead us to revise processes, protocols that must be improved? It forces us to rethink many things," Jorquera said.

This was not the first time the airport in Chile's capital was targeted. In 2020, thieves stole some USD 15 million from a warehouse in the airport, six years after a similar USD10 million heist.