MIAMI – A U.S.-contracted detection and monitoring aircraft crashed today into the Caribbean Sea, near the Colombia-Panama border. Four of the plane’s six crewmembers were killed; search crews rescued two survivors. The DH-8 aircraft was in support of Operation Martillo, and was monitoring coastal drug trafficking lanes in the Western Caribbean when it crashed just before 2 a.m.
Names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
