Cessna Caravan carrying as many as 5 americans crashs in Colombia

[kevin922 0]

Cnn

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A small plane carrying as many as five Americans crashed Thursday short of an airport in rebel territory in southern Colombia, a Colombian aviation official said.

The U.S. Embassy said it was "investigating the disappearance of a U.S. government aircraft."

"We are working to ascertain the facts around the disappearance," a U.S. Embassy spokesman told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The Colombian aviation official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Cessna Caravan was flying from Bogota to the Florencia area, 235 miles to the south, when radio contact was lost eight minutes before landing.

The military high command had no immediate comment, but one military officer said five Black Hawk helicopters had been sent to the area.

[Opie 0]

CNN now saying 5 survived the crash but two found dead with gunshot wounds. Three still missing. I think they said it was "civilians" working for the US state dept. onboard.

[kevin922 0]

here
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (CNN) -- The executed bodies of two people who had been aboard a U.S. government plane that crashed in southern Colombia have been found a mile from the incinerated craft, U.S. officials said Friday.

The dead men were identified as Janis Thomas, an American who was shot once in the neck, and Sgt. Luis Alcides Cruz, a member of the Colombian army who was shot once in the chest, said a spokesman for Colombia's attorney general.

They had been with three other Americans aboard a Cessna 208 that suffered mechanical problems and crashed Thursday morning deep in territory controlled by leftist rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The five appear to have survived the crash, in which the plane incinerated, but the two were later killed, the U.S. officials said.

A separate report from the Colombian attorney general said the bodies bore signs of gunshot wounds.

The three other people who were aboard the Cessna are unaccounted for. Two of them appear to have been captured by FARC rebels, the officials said.

The fate of the fifth was unknown.

The Cessna was contracted by the U.S. Defense Department, officials of the U.S. Southern Command told CNN.

It had been on an intelligence mission en route from the capital to Florencia, in Colombia's Caqueta Department, a region known to harbor FARC guerrillas, when it suffered mechanical problems and crash landed, the Colombian armed forces said in a statement.

Colombia's attorney general's office attributed its information to a regional unit of the Colombia Intelligence Brigade.