On April 12, 1999, a Fokker 50 operating the route was hijacked by a command of six guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN).

[1] Avianca flight 9463 was operating a route between the cities of Bucaramanga and Bogotá when at approximately 10:30 AM seven armed men rose out of their seats and identified themselves as members of the National Liberation Army (ELN).

The hijacker then forced the first officer to divert the aircraft to a clandestine landing strip called "Los Sábalos", located in the village of El Piñal, district of Vijagual, between the municipalities of Simití and San Pablo in the south of the department of Bolívar.

They proceeded to take the passengers of the aircraft into the surrounding jungle and subsequently floated them down a river where after they were transferred to a camp where they remained until their release.

The sentence condemned the hijackers, Luis Eduardo Galvis Rivera, William Ricardo Blanco Suárez and Héctor Dante Becerra Salazar to 37, 36 and 36 years in prison, respectively, for the crimes of aggravated extortive kidnapping, seizure and diversion of aircraft, material falsehood in public documents and destruction, suppression and concealment of public documents.