Panamanian officials said three
Americans and a Panamanian military officer were killed, and the other
two Americans on board were injured. The Americans have not been
identified. The crash took place in Choco province, 340 miles northwest
of Colombia’s capital, Bogota, near the border with Panama.
Gen. Nicasio de Jesus Martinez,
commander of the Colombian army’s Brigade IV whose troops traveled to
the accident scene, ruled out the possibility that the plane was shot
down by rebels still active in Colombia.
“There was no aggression, no impact …
it was a failure,” said Martinez, adding that it was too soon to know if
the crash was caused by mechanical failure, human error or the weather.
Farmers reported that the plane went
down at about 1 a.m. local time in a rural part of the municipality of
Acandi, said Acandi Mayor Gabriel Jose Olivares.
Not
the flight in question, but a daytime view of different flight that
shows what the Acadi region looks like from the air.
Carlos Ivan Marquez, chief of
Colombia’s national office for disaster response, said the injured
received first aid in a nearby community before being transported to
Bogota for treatment of injuries that include multiple bone fractures
and burns over at least 40 percent of their bodies.
Panama’s National Air Service said in a
statement that officer Lt. Lloyd Nunez was killed in the crash along
with three Americans. It said the accident occurred during an anti-drug
operation along the border of the two countries and that Panama was
assisting Colombia in the rescue operation.
Santiago Castro, director of
Colombia’s Civil Aviation agency, said the small plane wasn’t civilian
so he couldn’t provide details about its route. Olivares said he didn’t
know the origin or destination of the flight.
The region where the plane went down
is mountain jungle and units of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, and drug traffickers all operated in it, the
Colombian army said in a statement.
Officials at the U.S. Embassies in Bogota and Panama City did not immediately comment on the accident.
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