Placencia plane theft/crash investigation continues; Government contemplates upping security at airstrips

Published by BBNTEAM at October 31, 2023

Posted: Tuesday, October 31, 2023. 10:50 pm CST.

By Aaron Humes: It appears narco-traffickers are behind the aborted attempted theft of a leased Maya Island Air craft from the Placencia regional airport 15 days ago, which crash-landed seconds after taking off, resulting in the deaths of a Venezuelan and Argentine pilot.

Police and their counterparts in the region including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration continue to chase leads and attempt to identify the men who held up the airport’s single security guard and got to the plane. As many as eight persons arrived by boat including the pilots.

Today, it was confirmed that no cargo was on the Cessna Caravan turboprop aircraft and the working theory remains that the men intended to fly out of Belize for a run to South America.

Commissioner of Police Chester Williams gave an update, emphasizing Belizean involvement: “We do believe that there were Belizeans involved in that operation. There is no way the foreigners could have come to Belize and know exactly where to go and what to do and so, Belizeans had to be involved. We have not been able to identify the person or persons who were in that vehicle; neither have we been able to identify the vehicle. We believe that the boat may have gone to Honduras as we also believe that it came from Honduras and went to that location. There was no cargo on the plane and our investigation into that matter continues…”

Meanwhile, Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs, says dialogue has been opened up with the Department of Civil Aviation on how to guard airports from this new and unexpected challenge: “It is sort of an unprecedented move by any means. No one would ever have imagined something like that could possibly happen and so, we absolutely have to be on high alert at all of our aerodromes like you mention.”

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