US plane crashes in Colombia; survivors feared captured
By Andrew Selsky, Associated Press, 2/14/2003
BOGOTA -- A US government plane carrying four Americans and a Colombian crashed yesteray in southern Colombia, apparently killing two of those aboard, and officials feared the survivors were captured by leftist rebels.
Officials with the state prosecutor's office spotted two bodies amid the wreckage, said the government office, which is responsible in Colombia for investigating deaths. US Embassy officials had no comment on the report.
After getting word of the crash, US officials scrambled rescue teams to the the region, but at least one report said rebels had captured those aboard and announced, ''We have them! We have them!'' in an intercepted radio transmission.
There was no statement from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's main leftist rebel group. A Colombian military official reported the transmission.
US officials refused to discuss the mission or identities of those aboard the single-engine Cessna, which went down as it approached Florencia, 235 miles south of Bogota, the capital.
The Colombian Armed Forces' high command said the plane was on an intelligence operation.
It was not clear which arm of the US government operates the plane. A host of US agencies and government contractors are in Colombia. They operate radar stations that track drug-smuggling flights, fumigate drug crops with airplanes, and assist Colombian security forces in other antidrug operations. Sources said those aboard the plane were not Drug Enforcement Administration agents.
If the survivors were captured, it would mark the first time in Colombia's decades-long civil war that Americans on US government business had been taken by the insurgents.
Dozens of private US missionaries and businessmen have been kidnapped by FARC and another rebel group, the National Liberation Army.
A US Embassy spokesman said the plane crashed near Florencia ''during an attempted emergency landing'' just before 9 a.m. The spokesman said the cause apparently was engine failure.
Radio contact with the Cessna was lost eight minutes before its scheduled landing, according to Colombia's civil air agency, which said there were four Americans and one Colombian aboard. Florencia is near vast fields that produce coca, the main ingredient of cocaine, and is controlled by rebels and rival paramilitary groups.
Cropdusting pilots contracted by the US State Department have been waging a massive fumigation campaign against the drug crops. But the State Department contractor, DynCorp, said its personnel were not aboard the plane.
Still, DynCorp spokeswoman Caroline Longanecker said the company was helping with rescue and recovery.
A Colombian military official said Colombian military Black Hawks were also being sent to the area, but then were ordered to return, with US officials being in charge of the case.
The crash comes as Washington moves beyond fighting drug trafficking -- which provides profits for rebels and paramilitaries -- to helping the Colombian government directly battle the insurgents.
US special forces in eastern and central Colombia are training Colombian army troops in counterinsurgency tactics. Washington is planning to share intelligence -- both human and electronic -- on the rebels with Colombia.
The area around Florencia contains many rebels.
Florencia is the biggest town on the edge of a huge rebel safe haven that the Colombian government granted to the FARC at the end of 1998 as a site for peace talks.
The government revoked the sanctuary last year and canceled the peace talks after FARC rebels hijacked an airliner, forced it to land on a rural road, and kidnapped a Colombian senator who was aboard.
The FARC and the National Liberation Army have fought the government and outlawed paramilitary groups in Colombia for nearly 40 years. About 3,500 people, mostly civilians, die each year in the fighting.
Government troops have moved into the main towns of the former safe haven, but rebels still control the countryside in the former sanctuary and surrounding areas.
This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 2/14/2003.
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